SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

THE  FACTS  OF  SOCIAL  LIFE  AS  THE  SOURCE 
OF  SOLUTIONS  FOR  THE  THEORETICAL  AND 
PRACTICAL  PROBLEMS  OF  ETHICS 

BY 
EDWARD   GARY  HAYES,  PH.D.,  LL.D. 

PROFESSOR   OF   SOCIOLOGY   IN   THE   UNIVERSITY    OF    ILLINOIS; 
AUTHOR  OF  "AN  INTRODUCTION  TO  THE  STUDY  OF  SOCIOLOGY" 


D.  APPLETON  AND  COMPANY 

NEW  YORK  LONDON 

1921 


H- 
H  3 


COPYRIGHT,   IQ2I,  BY 

EDWARD  CARY  HAYES 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OP  AMERICA 


TO 
MY  THREE  SONS 


"These  [writings  of  Comte,  Spencer,  Schaeffle,  etc.]  are  of  course 
incomplete  attempts,  but  nevertheless  they  are  the  most  important 
supports  for  an  empirical  ethics,  and  indispensable  aids  for  solving 
the  common  problems  of  the  special  social  sciences.  Thus  if  one 
places  the  emphasis  chiefly  upon  synthesis  or  upon  the  particular 
investigation  of  those  problems  which  all  of  the  special  social 
sciences  have  in  common  one  will  not  be  able  to  deny  the  right  of 
this  sociology — which  in  fact  is  only  a  sort  of  developed  empirical 
ethics — to  an  established  place  among  the  sciences." — GUSTAV 
SCHMOLLER,  Grundriss  der  Allgemeinen  Volkswirtschaftslehre. 

"Religion  is  an  unselfish  enthusiasm  uniting  vast  bodies  of  men 
in  aspiration  toward  an  ideal,  and  proving  the  source  of  heroic 
virtues." — W.  E.  H.  LECKY,  History  of  Rationalism  in  Europe. 

"What  do  I  care  whether  all  things  are  composed  of  atoms,  or 
of  similar  parts  or  of  fire  and  earth?  For  is  it  not  enough  to 
know  the  nature  of  the  good  and  the  evil,  and  the  measures  of 
the  desires  and  the  aversions,  and  also  the  movements  toward 
things  and  from  them ;  and,  using  these  as  rules,  to  administer  the 
affairs  of  life,  but  not  to  trouble  ourselves  about  the  things  above 
us?  For  these  things  are  perhaps  incomprehensible  to  the  human 
mind:  and  if  any  man  should  even  suppose  them  to  be  in  the 
highest  degree  comprehensible,  what  then  is  the  profit  of  them,  if 
they  are  comprehended?  And  must  we  not  say  that  those  men 
have  needless  trouble  who  assign  these  things  as  necessary  to  the 
philosopher's  discourse?"— Fragment  attributed  to  EPICTETUS. 


PREFACE 

This  essay  skirts  the  entrance  to  vistas  which  it  does 
not  penetrate.  But  it  suffices  to  convey  the  main  idea  of 
sociology  as  the  sdentific^ethics,  an  idea  which  I  hope 
willTructi7y~m  many  minds.  Most  of  the  manuscript 
has  lain  in  a  drawer  for  years ;  other  years  and  the  labor 
of  other  minds  must  be  expended  before  the  treatment 
of  this  theme  will  be  complete. 

What  is  here  presented  is  an  attempt  to  lift  into  its 
proper  prominence  one  phase  of  sociology,  and  of  course 
it  cannot  at  the  same  time  give  equal  emphasis  to  its  other 
phasesj^TOn  pages  31  to  33  there  is  emphatic  warning 
against  going  too  far  toward  identifying  sociology  and 
ethics.  At  the  same  time  it  is  not  forgotten  that  with 
both  Comte  and  Spencer  sociology  began  as  a  philosophy 
of  life.^5\nd  it  would  cause  the  writer  no  distress  of 
mind  if  in  some  universities  the  teaching  of  sociology 
should  be  assigned  to  the  department  of  philosophy.  H* 

I  am  fully  aware  that  the  way  to  secure  great  vogue 
for  a  book  upon  ethics  is  to  invent  a  plausible  argument, 
or  even  one  that  is  not  very  plausible,  for  believing  that 
which  most  people  already  believe,  while,  on  the  other 
hand,  only  comparatively  few  readers  are  hospitable  to 
any  modification  in  popular  beliefs  on  this  subject.  If 
some  find  it  hard  to  tolerate  the  treatment  of  ethical 
problems  as  within  the  scope  of  matter-of-fact  science 
and  as  belonging  to  the  realm  of  cause  and  effect,  still  I 


Vll 


viii  PREFACE 

hope  that  they  will  nevertheless  find  the  treatment  as  a 
whole  not  destructive  but  decidedly  constructive.  If 
I  am  somewhat  venturesome  in  handling  the  accepted  be- 
liefs, it  is  not  for  mere  love  of  adventure,  nor  from  dis- 
regard of  the  values  affected,  but  because  I  hold  the 
theory  that  in  the  end  thought  helps  life  more  when 
thought  is  true  than  when  thinking  is  prostituted  to 
serve  preferences.  And  even  if  this  theory,  or  faith, 
should  prove  erroneous  some  may  choose  to  spend  their 
mental  life  on  a  cold  and  arid  plateau  of  unclouded 
sincerity,  rather  than  in  any  steaming  valley  of  tropical 
illusion.  It  is  far  too  early  in  the  day  to  conclude  that 
an  unflinching  and  objective-minded  sincerity  will  lead 
us  only  into  barrenness  and  cold,  and  that  it  may  not  lead 
us  into  the  temperate  zone  of  belief  where  mankind  can 
thrive  best. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.    THE  CREED  OF  THE  INCREDULOUS I 

II.    THE  RESIDUUM  OF  FAITH 14 

-  III.    SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 27 

IV.    THE  NATURAL  SCIENCE  VIEW  OF  SOCIAL  LIFE       ...  40 

V.    THE  NATURE  OF  WILL 52 

VI.    THE  ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  OF  A  NATURAL  SCIENCE  VIEW 

OF  LIFE 77 

VII.    THE  SOCIAL  VALUES 108 

VIII.    SOCIAL   VALUES   AS   OBJECTS   OF   KNOWLEDGE,   OR   THE 

PROBLEM  OF  THE  GOOD 161 

IX.    THE  SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES  AND  THE  NATURAL- 
ISTIC   INTERPRETATION    OF    DUTY,    OR   THE    PROBLEM 

OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 182 

X.    THE    MOTIVES    TO   RIGHTEOUSNESS,    I.    THE   ETHICAL 

FUNCTIONS  OF  HUMAN  PREDISPOSITIONS    ....  223 

XI.    THE   MOTIVES   TO   RIGHTEOUSNESS,    II.    SOCIALIZATION 

THROUGH  THE  EXERCISE  OF  REASON 258 

XII.    SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE— PHILOSOPHIC  IMPLICA- 
TIONS         313 

INDEX .     .  351 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  CREED   OF   THE  INCREDULOUS 

A  philosophy  is  almost  as  necessary  to  civilized  society 
as  a  language.  The  philosophy  that  civilized  society  must 
have  is  an  ethics — not  this  or  that  particular  ethics  but 
some  ethics  or  other — that  is  to  say,  some  generally  ac- 
cepted idea  or  ideas  adapted  to  give  direction  and  mo- 
mentum to  life. 

The  ethics  of  yesterday  was  largely  based  on  legalistic 
religion,  on  the  thought  of  divine  law  enforceable  by  re- 
wards and  punishments  here  and  hereafter.  Its  ideals 
were  too  individualistic.  Instead  of  aiming  at  the  estab- 
lishment of  a  "kingdom  of  righteousness"  on  earth  it 
despaired  of  that  triumph  l  and  looked  mainly  to  the 
future  salvation  of  the  individual  soul.  Nevertheless  the 
religion  of  the  last  generation  was  of  incalculable  value 
as  a  source  of  guidance  and  power.  To-day  the  fear 
of  Hell  and  hope  of  Heaven  and  belief  in  the  intervention 
of  "special  providence"  in  behalf  of  the  good  man  and 
in  disfavor  of  the  bad  man  play  greatly  diminished 

*The  substitution  of  a  mystic  doctrine  of  the  "second  coming" 
for  the  practical  purpose  for  which  the  founder  of  Christianity 
lived  and  died  is  the  most  pathetic  of  all  perversions  of  a  noble 
teaching. 


2  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

roles  in  the  control  of  life.  Moreover,  deeply  as  we  may 
regret  :t,  we  cannot  fail  to  observe  that  the  sense  of  divine 
companionship,  which  so  refines  and  ennobles  many  lives 
and  develops  so  much  staunch  ethical  reliability,  tends  to 
fade  out  of  the  social  consciousness  as  anthropomorphic 
conceptions  of  God  are  being  replaced  by  philosophic 
pantheism  or  agnosticism.  Religious  ethics  was  rein- 
forced for  a  time  by  "moral  philosophy";  but  moral 
philosophy  like  that  of  Kant  was  unscientific  and  is  now 
discredited  and  for  most  minds  dead. 

'Look  at  Germany!  Neither  the  religion  of  Luther 
nor  the  philosophy  of  Kant  2  guides  her  life.  Her  national 
policy  has  exhibited  a  thoroughly  barbarous  unmorality. 
And  moral  disintegration  is  by  no  means  peculiar  to 
Germany.  A  large  part  of  our  own  popular  fiction  con- 
sists in  the  subtlest  advocacy  of  a  pseudo-scientific  un- 
morality. If  a  critic  raises  his  voice  in  defense  of  the 
"mid-Victorian'*  decencies  and  sanctities  he  is  greeted 
with  a  chorus  of  scoffs  and  jeers.  We  are  assured  that 
nothing  is  wrong  that  is  "natural,"  that  in  nature  there  is 
no  higher  and  no  lower,  that  altruism  is  only  a  form  of 
selfishness,  and  that  reason  has  no  precedence  over  the 
instincts  that  we  share  with  the  beasts.  Among  the  "in- 
tellectuals," "the  emancipated,"  "the  enlightened  youth," 
the  leaders  and  makers  of  our  future,  great  numbers 
are  moving  rapidly  and  with  gathering  momentum  toward 
an  abyss  not  wholly  unlike  that  into  which  the  aristocratic 
party  in  Germany  has  fallen.  The  abyss  is  no  less  deep 
and  dark  and  noisome  because  hitherto  with  us  un- 

'Kant  taught  the  absolutism  of  moral  law  and  Professor  Dewey 
thinks  that  his  influence  degenerated  into  a  prop  for  the  unmoral 
absolutism  of  the  Prussian  monarchy. 


THE  CREED  OF  THE  INCREDULOUS        3 

morality  has  taken  the  form  of  private,  rather  than  na- 
tional, individualism. 

Now,  if  this  doctrine  of  "the  emancipated"  is  a  true 
statement  of  the  facts  of  human  existence,  and  if  the 
moral  distinction  between  right  and  wrong  is  an  old 
wives'  nursery  fable  designed  to  scare  a  juvenile  and 
timorous  humanity,  but  outgrown  by  the  men  of  a  scien- 
tific age,  or  if  it  is  an  invention  devised  and  perpetuated 
in  the  interest  of  the  many  weak  in  order  to  bind  the 
strong,  and  is  an  insult  to  the  right  and  might  of  super- 
men, if  moral  restraints  are  only  an  attempt  to  curb  the 
"natural"  current  of  full,  free  and  rich  life,  then  we 
cannot  hide  the  fact  from  an  adult  and  scientific  world, 
and  may  as  well  plunge  at  once  into  the  melee  of  raven- 
ing beasts,  and  let  nonsurvival  take  the  hindmost. 

But  does  that  "doctrine  of  the  emancipated"  present 
a  true  or  a  false  conception  of  human  life?  That  is  the 
sole  question.  It  is  a  comprehensive  question  and  in- 
cludes the  following: 

Are  ravening  individualism  and  ruthless  war  of  groups 
the  method  of  survival  for  creatures  capable  of  rational 
social  organization? 

Are  the  characteristic  values  of  human  experience 
obtainable  by  the  unregulated  operation  of  instincts  which 
we  share  with  animals  that  have  not  evolved  to  the  level 
of  gregarious  life? 

Are  these  values  obtainable  by  the  operation  of  any 
instincts  undirected  by  reason,  or  do  instincts,  stimulated 
and  guided  by  the  conclusions  of  reason,  yield  a  richer 
life  than  irrational  impulses  do? 

If  so,  what  are  the  conclusions  of  adequately  enlight- 


4  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

ened  reason  that  afford  the  necessary  guidance  to 
instinctive  promptings  ? 

Does  the  realization  of  the  biggest  net  total  of  human 
values  require  the  subordination  of  this  or  that  particular 
instinct  to  the  harmonious  totality  of  experience? 

Does  it  even  require  the  organization  of  the  activities 
of  individuals  into  a  regulated  system  of  cooperation? 

And  is  it  required  by  the  nature  of  the  situation  that 
men  and  women,  in  order  to  be  capable  of  the  richest  in- 
dividual life  and  capable  of  a  social  cooperation  on  which 
the  greatest  net  total  of  individual  good  depends,  must 
have  developed  personalities  that  are  products  not  only 
of  biological,  but  also  of  social,  evolution? 

None  of  these  questions  can  be  finally  answered  by 
any  kind  of  dogmatizing  or  conceptual  philosophizing, 
but  only  by  a  genuinely  unbiased  study  of  the  facts  of 
life  as  it  is  lived  by  men  in  society. 

Will  the  next  generation  have  an  ethics?  It  will  not 
get  its  ethics  by  going  backward  to  mid-Victorian  dogmas 
and  speculations.  If  it  has  an  ethics  fit  for  the  demands 
of  social  order  and  progress  it  will  discover  it  by  going 
forward  along  the  path  of  science — not  along  the  path 
of  a  priori  speculation  or  mystic  faith,  but  along  the  path 
of  science.  J  And  the  only  science  that  can  equip  us  with 
an  ethics  is  the  scientific  study  of  human  life,  that  is  to 
say,  of  social  life,  for  man's  life  becomes  human  in  the 
significant  and  distinctive  sense  only  in  society  and  by  the 
methods  of  causation  involved  in  the  cumulative  effects 
of  association./  Such  study,  whether  it  is  called  sociology 
or  by  some  other  name,  is  our  only  hope  for  an  adequate 
ethics. 

The  physicists  tell  us  that  the  chair  in  which  I  am 


THE  CREED  OF  THE  INCREDULOUS        5 

comfortably  seated  is  a  stable  balance  of  ionic  action, 
and  that  if  this  ionic  action  were  released  from  the  orderly 
system  in  which  it  proceeds  it  would  blow  me  and  my 
whole  environment  to  less  than  atoms.  Similarly,  the 
instinctive  action  of  human  individuals  is  correlated  into 
a  comfortable  social  order,  but  if  the  energies  of  un- 
socialized  instinctive  action  were  released  from  orderly 
and  systematic  control  society  would  pass  into  decay  and 
dissolution  or  chaotic  explosion.  Primitive  men  could 
live  together  only  in  little  hordes.  Beyond  the  horde 
was  war.  The  organized  cooperation  of  millions  is  the 
supreme  product  of  social  evolution,  an  evolution  that 
has  been  largely  unplanned  and  uncomprehended.  That 
evolution  is  not  complete.  The  possibilities  of  social 
organization  and  of  individual  experience  for  the  masses 
of  mankind  are  as  yet  unrealized.  In  every  age  men 
of  insight  and  deep  human  interest  have  declared  the 
shortcomings  of  the  society  to  which  they  belonged  and 
assured  us  that  we  live  only  along  the  margin  of  the  fields 
of  realization  we  might  enter.  Even  savages  and  bar- 
barians have  had  their  Messianic  hopes  and  prophecies. 
Unrealized  good  is  always  within  view  and  barely  beyond 
our  reach.  It  is  beyond  us  only  because  there  is  nowhere 
a  society  that  has  developed  an  adequate  ethics.  Re- 
liable ethics  is  a  knowledge  of  the  method  of  realizing 
our  human  possibilities,  discovered  by  scientists  or  seers, 
and  inwrought  in  the  common  sense  and  common  senti- 
ments of  a  society. 

Ethics  is  always  founded  on  an  understanding,  a  theory 
or  a  faith.  Change  men's  ideas  and  thereupon  their 
sentiments  and  conduct  change.  As  a  man  dozing  by  the 
fireside  is  roused  to  a  fury  of  action  if  his  wife  announces 


6  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

that  upstairs  the  attic  is  in  a  blaze,  so  an  ambitionless 
idler  may  be  converted  into  a  zealot,  or  a  stagnant  and 
decadent  society  may  arise  to  heights  of  achievement, 
if  sufficiently  propulsive  ideas  are  adopted.  If  the  senti- 
ments radiated  throughout  society  arose  from  apprehen- 
sion, or  even  a  remote  approach  toward  apprehension, 
of  the  human  values  at  stake  and  of  the  way  in  which 
commonplace  conduct  fits  into  a  scheme  of  things  on 
which  the  realization  or  forfeiture  of  these  values  depends, 
men  would  be  aroused  to  a  joy  in  zestful  endeavor  and  a 
constancy  in  sentiment  and  purpose  known  only  to  the 
most  fortunate.  We  should  have  an  enthusiasm  of  gen- 
erous motive  in  time  of  peace  not  inferior  to  that  evoked 
by  war.  An  individual,  to  be  happy  and  powerful,  and 
a  society,  to  be  progressive  and  constructive,  must  have 
ideas  that  are  both  propulsive  and  exalted.  If  there  are 
no  such  ideas  that  are  true,  then  individuals  and  society 
are  doomed  to  disappointment,  disillusionment,  and  de- 
cay. If  there  are  such  ideas,  then  their  discovery  and 
promulgation  till  they  are  embodied  in  the  common  sense 
of  the  masses  of  mankind  is  the  profoundest  of  all  human 
needs. 

The  ideas  by  which  individual  and  social  life  has  been 
organized  during  the  nineteenth  century  are  fading  out 
from  many  minds.  The  mind  of  man  will  learn  all  that 
it  can  learn.  That  is  inevitable  and  we  must  take  the 
consequences.  We  cannot  permanently  protect  faith  by 
any  ignorance  that  science  can  dispel.  First  the  teachers 
and  then  the  taught,  gradually  and  increasingly,  will  dis- 
card all  illusions  and  faith  that  cannot  survive  in  the 
presence  of  all  the  knowledge  that  we  possess  or  can 
acquire.  As  yet  many  have  neither  received  the  existing 


THE  CREED  OF  THE  INCREDULOUS       7 

knowledge  that  will  ultimately  become  common  property 
nor  come  under  the  influence  of  teachers  who  have  re- 
ceived it ;  but  this  is  only  a  temporary  condition.  Others, 
who  are  among  the  enlightened,  are  so  deeply  under  the 
influence  of  the  teachings  of  their  youth  and  the  prestige 
of  organized  systems  of  thought  that  they  are  able  to 
close  their  eyes  to  the  implications  of  their  scientific 
knowledge.  A  few  boldly  declare :  "My  science  and  my 
faith  are  incompatible  but  I  cannot  live  without  my  faith 
so  I  retain  it  simply  because  I  must  and  will." 

Such  a  transition  as  now  is  taking  place  presents  two 
phases :  the  revision  or  rejection  of  the  old  and  the 
development  of  new  views.  The  tendency  is  to  remove 
the  sills  and  timbers  of  the  old  structure  of  ideas  before 
there  is  anything  to  put  in  their  places.  There  are  two 
ways  in  which  men  strive  to  escape  from  the  resulting  dis- 
turbance or  destruction  of  their  own  life  and  that  of 
society.  The  first  way  is  to  strive  to  perpetuate  or  re- 
establish the  old.  This  is  the  way  taken  by  great  num- 
bers of  earnest  people  from  Billy  Sunday,  with  his 
brandished  threats  of  the  Devil  and  Hell  and  his  collarless 
and  colloquial  familiarities  with  the  Deity,  to  Arthur 
James  Balfour  with  his  Foundation  of  Belief  in  the  fact 
that  we  need  it,  William  James  with  his  Will  to  Believe, 
and  a  goodly  company  of  reverent  and  intellectual  apolo- 
gists as  futile  as  they  are  ingenious.  The  second  way 
is  to  strive  to  build  the  new  and  to  press  toward  the 
views  of  human  life  that  are  disclosed  by  the  light  of 
fullest  knowledge.  This  latter  course  appears  to  have 
been  relatively  little  followed  by  men  of  the  profoundest 
moral  earnestness.  It  is  time  to  realize  that  it  is  not  by 
reluctant  and  grudging  and  timorous  admissions  that  we 


8  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

can  best  approach  the  actual  truth  about  life  by  cou- 
rageous and  zealous  search  for  the  truth.  The  way  out  is 
not  backward  but  forward;  backward  we  cannot  turn. 
The  way  to  shorten  the  period  of  transition,  disorganiza- 
tion, and  lack  of  social  agreement  upon  the  fundamentals 
of  life  policy  is  cordially  to  accept  the  results  and  the 
methods  of  science  and  push  on  toward  more  adequate 
comprehension.  It  is  a  tragedy  if  the  men  of  greatest 
moral  earnestness,  that  is,  the  men  of  deepest  interest 
in  the  human  values  at  stake,  are  to  hold  back. 

The  creed  of  the  incredulous  is  a  working  hypothesis 
to  the  effect  that  life  is  adaptation  to  objective  reality 
and  that  for  purposes  of  adaptation  it  is  better  to  know 
the  objective  realities  as  they  are.  Such  knowledge,  ac- 
cording to  this  hypothesis,  is  at  least  in  some  respects 
preferable  to  the  most  satisfying  "conceptions"  that  the 
mind  can  invent  in  answer  to  its  own  longings. 

Errors  are  often  elaborate,  beautiful,  and  useful.  It 
is  no  wonder  that  men  are  well  suited  by  ideas  which 
were  made  by  themselves  to  suit  themselves  through  a 
long  process  of  invention  and  improvement;  especially 
when  they  pertain  to  subjects  about  which  we  can  have 
no  knowledge  to  limit  invention.  We  suffer  when  our 
cherished  errors  are  dispelled.  The  life  of  the  Hopi  In- 
dians was  shaken  to  its  foundations  when  they  saw 
white  settlers  raise  crops  of  maize  without  the  Hopi 
ceremonies  and  incantations.  There  was  a  sense  of  loss 
on  the  part  of  physicians  and  of  their  trusting  patients 
two  generations  ago  when  it  was  found  that  most  of 
the  current  bleeding,  blistering,  and  nostrums  were  with- 
out avail.  But  the  same  science  which  destroyed  our 
comfortable  confidence  in  antiquated  practices  gave  us 


THE  CREED  OF  THE  INCREDULOUS       9 

chemical  physiology,  bacteriology,  antitoxins  and  anti- 
septics; and  having  destroyed  our  faith  in  the  virtue  of 
planting  at  the  full  of  the  moon  gave  us  a  knowledge  of 
the  chemistry  of  soil  fertilization  that  doubled  our 
harvests. 

Science  will  not  replace  former  ideas  about  the  un- 
knowable with  new  ideas  about  the  unknowable.  The 
creed  or  hypothesis  of  the  incredulous  is  that  our  facul- 
ties are  not  so  inadequate  to  our  necessity  that  the  ideas 
which  we  must  have  in  order  to  live  are  beyond  the  com- 
pass of  our  powers.  It  seeks  its  guiding  and  impelling 
ideas  within  the  sphere  accessible  to  our  intelligence. 
The  hypothesis  is  that  man's  adaptability  is  such  that  he 
can  live  a  satisfactory  conscious  life  upon  what  is  called 
knowledge,  as  contrasted  with  mere  speculation  or  imag- 
ination, provided  knowledge  is  made  as  adequate  as 
possible. 

This  is  not  a  creed  in  the  sense  of  a  doctrine  to  be 
"believed"  or  held  by  "faith"  in  sharp  contrast  with  what 
can  be  "known."  It  is  a  rational,  working  hypothesis  to 
be  tested.  If  it  stands  the  test  it  will  gradually  lead  to  a 
body  of  principles  based  on  science  and  experience,  that 
embody  the  natural  incentives  and  deterrents  contained  in 
the  actual  values  of  life  and  the  conditions  of  their 
realization.  It  will  be  a  creed  only  in  function.  That 
is  to  say,  it  will  serve  the  purpose  once  served  by 
creeds. 

It  may  be  that  knowledge  will  not  function  so  well,  will 
not  make  life  quite  so  satisfying  and  ennobled  as  did  the 
conceptions  that  men  have  gradually  formulated  in 
answer  to  their  own  sense  of  need.  To  claim  that  knowl- 
edge can  replace  without  loss  the  noblest  creeds  men  have 


io  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

devised  is  somewhat  like  claiming  that  this  is  for  man  the 
best  possible  world.  Science  cannot  make  that  assump- 
tion any  more  than  it  can  deny  that  possibility.  If  knowl- 
edge about  life  should  permanently  lack  some  of  the 
advantages  of  conceptual  creeds  as  a  source  of  life's 
guidance  and  power,  it  has  on  the  other  hand  advantages 
of  its  own.  If  it  is  truly  knowledge,  based  on  adequate 
verification,  its  appeal  will  be  more  universal,  more  con- 
stant, freer  from  sectarian  divisiveness  and  will  therefore 
afford  the  basis  for  a  more  solid  and  general  agreement  in 
social  cooperation. 

The  religions  of  the  past  have  had  their  roots  in  curi- 
osity and  fear  about  the  unknown.  Ethics  has  always 
had  its  roots  in  actual  experience  of  the  known  and  study 
of  its  knowable  conditions.  All  the  ethical  insight  man 
ever  had  he  derived  from  contemplation  of  life's  realities. 
Many  religious  requirements  have  been,  and  some  which 
continue  to  this  day  are  still,  of  a  merely  ritual  charac- 
ter; that  is  to  say,  they  have  no  inherent  ethical  impor- 
tance. Where  ethical  and  religious  requirements  coincide 
this  agreement  may  have  come  about  in  either  of  two 
ways :  In  the  one  case  an  ethical  requirement  was  first 
perceived  and  a  religious  sanction  subsequently  added. 
Prophets  or  moral  leaders  who  had  discovered  an  ethical 
requirement,  since  they  believed  in  God,  or  Gods,  be- 
lieved that  the  ethical  requirement  which  they  had  dis- 
covered must  be  the  will  of  God,  and  that  ethical  customs 
of  the  group  must  be  enforced  by  tribal  deities.  In  the 
other  case,  instead  of  an  ethical  requirement  coming  first 
and  a  religious  sanction  being  added,  the  religious  re- 
quirement came  first  and  what  was  at  first  a  merely  ritual 
obligation,  or  fear  taboo,  was  so  modified  or  reinter- 


THE  CREED  OF  THE  INCREDULOUS   ir 

preted  as  to  give  it  a  practical  significance.  Sometimes 
the  religious  fear,  or  hope,  was  thus  made  to  furnish 
motive  for  conduct  that  was  not  ethical  in  the  sense  of 
serviceable  to  the  general  welfare,  but  serviceable  to  the 
welfare  of  the  ruling  or  priestly  class.  For  example,  the 
food  and  sex  taboos  that  reserved  the  choicest  indul- 
gences for  the  use  of  the  elders  of  the  group. 

Two  rival  theories  of  the  origin  of  sabbath  observance 
illustrate  the  two  methods  by  which  religious  and  ethical 
requirements  may  come  into  agreement.  According  to 
one  theory,3  the  practical  necessity  of  a  day  of  rest  was 
discovered  as  soon  as  large  bodies  of  men  were  engaged 
in  regular  and  strenuous  labor.  The  Chaldeans  and 
Babylonians  divided  the  lunar  month  of  twenty-eight 
days  into  four  quarters  of  seven  days  each  and  allowed 
their  slaves  to  rest  on  the  last  day  of  each  quarter.  From 
the  Babylonians  the  Hebrews  learned  this  beneficent  cus- 
tom and  came  in  time  to  treat  its  observance  as  a 
religious  obligation.  According  to  the  rival  theory  4  the 
sabbath  originated  in  one  of  those  utterly  superstitious 
taboos  devoid  of  ethical  value  which  among  many  peoples 
condemn,  or  bless,  certain  days  on  which  ordinary  occu- 
pations are  interdicted.  Among  the  Babylonians  the 
seventh  days  were  "evil  days"  on  which  the  wrath  of 
Gods  must  be  appeased,  and  among  the  Hebrews  likewise 
the  observance  had  at  first  a  merely  ritual  significance. 
But  in  later  times,  and  especially  in  Christian  countries, 
the  physiological  and  psychological  necessity  of  periodic 
rest  has  come  to  be  appreciated. 

3  Mentioned  by  Professor  Gustav  Schmoller  in  his  lectures  on  the 
labor  question. 

4  Compare  Hutton  Webster,  Rest  Days,  especially  c.  vii  and  viii. 
New  York,  1916. 


12  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

Whichever  of  these  theories  may  finally  prove  to  be 
historically  correct  the  ethical  and  ritual  elements  in  the 
requirement  are  in  either  case  clearly  distinct  in  origin 
and  significance.  Any  truly  ethical  duty  has  its  basis, 
not  in  a  supernatural  requirement,  but  in  a  practical  use. 
And  the  disappearance  of  any  religious  elements  with 
which  it  may  have  been  associated  does  not  affect  the 
permanence  of  the  ground  for  an  ethical  requirement. 
No  ritual  requirement  can  either  add  to  or  subtract  from 
the  facts,  if  they  be  facts,  that  physical  health  and 
efficiency  require  periodic  interruption  of  routine,  and 
that  recurring  periods  of  time  devoted  to  man's  spiritual  5 
and  intellectual  needs  are  as  truly  a  natural  requirement 
as  recurrent  periods  of  physical  rest,  that  regularly  recur- 
ring days  will  not  be  devoted  to  these  physical  and  psychic 
needs  by  the  majority  of  individuals  except  as  the  result 
of  a  habit,  and  that  such  a  habit  will  not  prevail  among 
the  members  of  society  except  as  the  result  of  a  custom, 
together  with  facilities  provided  by  society  for  the  ob- 
servance of  the  custom.  Sabbath  observance,  like  every 
other  ethical  requirement,  if  it  is  a  duty  at  all,  is  a  natural 
duty,  that  is,  a  duty  by  the  very  nature  of  things.  And 
conformity  to  this  or  any  other  ethical  requirement 
should  be  sought  in  an  intelligent  society  by  clearly  dis- 
closing the  natural  basis  of  the  requirement  and  thus 
establishing  a  social  agreement  as  to  its  importance  and 
social  insistence  upon  conformity  to  it.  Duty  of  every 
kind  is  a  natural  requirement,  a  condition  of  human  wel- 
fare. 

Religious    requirements    may    come    or    go,    ethical 

*The   word   "spiritual"   means   psychic.     It   refers   to   the   far- 
reaching  effects  of  states  of  thought  and  feeling. 


THE  CREED  OF  THE  INCREDULOUS   13 

motives  remain.  The  sufferings  and  the  joys  of  human 
life  are  known  to  man,  if  anything  is,  and  they  are 
conditioned  in  accordance  with  the  orderly  processes  of 
nature.  They  are  conditioned  by  the  cooperative  activity 
of  all  men;  and  this  system  of  cooperative  activity  by 
which  human  joys  are  realized  or  prevented,  and  human 
sorrows  averted  or  heaped  up,  places  upon  each  individ- 
ual participant  in  the  system  of  human  activity  obli- 
gations, and  offers  to  each  opportunities,  the  summons 
of  which,  if  clearly  apprehended,  would  evoke  both  inspi- 
ration and  devotion.  To  open  the  eyes  of  men  to  the 
facts  of  their  own  interdependent  existence  would  reveal 
a  worth  and  a  meaning  in  life,  and  supply  it  with  direc- 
tion and  motive  adequate  to  elicit  zest  and  power. 

These  facts  have  already  begun  to  function  in  the  lives 
of  the  incredulous  in  place  of  creed.  These  facts  are 
subject  to  objective  test;  so  also  is  the  effect  produced  by 
knowledge  of  these  facts  on  individual  and  social  life. 
It  may  be  found  that  facts  are  even  mightier  than  creeds 
as  sources  of  ethical  guidance  and  motive.  We  may 
reasonably  hope,  some  day,  to  have  a  society  in  which 
individuals  will  measure  their  success,  not  by  conformity 
to  some  current  folly,  but  in  terms  of  the  actual  values 
affected,  a  society  in  which  the  distillation  and  diffusion 
of  sentiments  and  the  adoption  of  customs  and  institu- 
tions will  follow  from  a  far  more  general  perception  of 
the  values  of  human  experience  and  of  the  mingled  conse- 
quences of  human  conduct.  Such  perceptions  once  orig- 
inated by  the  few  can  spread  abroad.  Moreover,  such 
sentiments  can  be  felt,  such  customs  practiced  and  such 
institutions  enjoyed  by  multitudes  to  whom  these  per- 
ceptions never  more  than  dimly  penetrate. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  RESIDUUM  OF  FAITH 

The  most  beautiful  and  ennobling  creed  that  human 
speculation  has  evolved  is  not  lightly  cast  aside  by  any 
man  who  comprehends  the  importance  of  ideas  for  life. 
Such  a  person  is  likely  to  feel  that  no  calamities  ever 
inflicted  on  the  world  by  any  war  compare,  as  a  catas- 
trophe to  mankind,  with  the  loss  of  the  creed  of  Divine 
companionship.  Only  one  who  has  known  its  full  effect 
in  his  own  life  is  in  position  to  estimate  its  value.  Can 
that  creed  be  retained? 

It  is  impossible  to  prove  the  truth  of  that  conception 
of  God,  and  of  his  relation  to  the  unfolding  life  of  our 
race,  which  is  the  essence  of  that  creed.  And  it  seems 
amazing  that  if  God  is  so  related  to  man  this  truth,  so 
important  to  our  welfare,  should  be  beyond  the  compass 
of  our  rational  powers.  One  may  answer,  though  the 
answer  is  not  a  wholly  satisfying  or  consoling  one,  that 
the  human  brain  has  been  produced  by  biological  evolu- 
tion and  therefore  could  not  develop  any  powers  save 
those  that  can  be  used  to  contribute  to  biological  sur- 
vival, and  that  such  powers  are  necessarily  inadequate 
for  the  discovery  of  absolute  and  ultimate  truth. 

Some  claim  that  instinct  gives  us  a  knowledge  of  God 
which  reason  cannot  verify,  and  which  reason  may  even 
call  in  question.  But  every  instinct  is  as  humbly  biologi- 


THE  RESIDUUM  OF  FAITH  15 

cal  in  origin  as  reason.  The  universality,  or  approximate 
universality,  among  savage  and  barbarous  peoples  of 
notions  about  unseen  personal  powers  seems  to  be  ade- 
quately accounted  for  by  students  of  social  evolution 
without  the  assumption  of  such  an  instinct.  The  ideas 
of  early  peoples  about  the  unseen  have  not  enough  con- 
sistency nor  respectability  to  be  divinely  implanted. 
Scientists  do  not  lack  an  instinct  of  this  sort  that  is  pos- 
sessed by  savages  and  barbarians.  If  any  scientist  thinks 
he  has  instinctive  knowledge  of  God  let  him  ask  himself 
how  far  he  can  distinguish  religious  ideas  which  he  calls 
instinctive  from  those  which  are  the  result  of  the  social 
suggestions  that  surrounded  his  childhood. 

A  far  more  respectable  claim  is  set  up  by  arguing  that 
the  existence  of  a  Supreme  Power  continuously  causing 
all  phenomena  and  possessing  not  less,  but  incomparably 
more,  of  every  attribute  of  personality  than  man  pos- 
sesses, is  implied  in  what  we  know  of  nature  so  that  it 
can  be  legitimately  inferred. 

Surely  it  would  be  an  amazing  and  well-nigh  incredible 
thing  if  the  intelligence  made  possible  by  this  pulpy 
mechanism  of  nerve  cells  compassed  all  the  truth  about 
the  universe,  and  if  these  organs  of  conscious  response 
which  have  been  developed  by  the  process  of  natural 
selection  so  far,  and  only  so  far,  as  is  contributory  to  the 
survival  of  our  bodily  organism  enabled  us  to  fathom  all 
knowledge.  Such  advancement  as  we  have  made  in 
knowledge  shows  us  that  our  ignorance  has  been  great 
and  prompts  us  to  infer  that  all  we  now  know  is  still 
like  the  tiny  circle  illuminated  by  a  lantern  in  a  night  of 
darkness.  No  physicist  can  tell  the  whole  truth  about 
so  simple  a  thing  as  my  pen  or  the  table  on  which  I  write. 


16  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

According  to  his  hypothesis,  when  we  get  a  sensation  of 
mottled  brown  and  yellow  in  looking  at  the  oak  table,  the 
external  reality  corresponding  to  our  sensations  is  not 
color  but  a  set  of  reflected  vibrations  and  the  seemingly 
inert  wood  is  a  rhythm  and  whirl  of  vibrations  and 
vortices.  We  have  no  reason  to  think  that  the  circle  of 
our  knowledge  is  the  boundary  of  the  universe,  nor  that 
the  orderly  causation  that  reigns  within  the  circle  of  our 
knowledge  ceases  where  our  knowledge  stops.  This  little 
realm  of  phenomena  that  condition  each  other,  in  which 
we  move,  we  infer  to  be  part  of  a  larger  Totality  of 
causally  connected  reality.  Unless  the  most  fundamental 
of  all  our  inferences  is  false  that  Whole  contains  ade- 
quate causal  explanations  of  all  its  parts.  Such  is  the 
hypothesis  of  science.  By  the  constitution  of  our  minds, 
and  by  inference  from  the  process  of  explanation  so  far 
as  we  can  carry  it,  we  are  compelled  to  believe  in  the 
existence  of  adequate  causation  beyond  the  limits  of  our 
power  to  trace  causation. 

But  concerning  the  nature  of  ultimate  causation  we 
know  nothing.  That  which  science  calls  causation  is 
merely  the  conditioning  of  phenomena  by  other  phe- 
nomena no  more  ultimate  than  themselves.  Shall  we  lean 
upon  the  broken  reed  of  analogy  and  think  to  interpret 
ultimate  causation  by  analogy  with  this  conditioning,  by 
saying  that  the  primal  simplicity  was  already  multiple 
and  afforded  a  "combination  of  conditions"  from  which 
issued  the  first  step  in  evolution  ?  Shall  we  add  that  from 
this  supposed  beginning  evolution  has  been  a  process  in 
which  phenomena  have  persistently  risen  above  their 
source  ?  Shall  we  carry  this  assumption  to  its  conclusion 
and  say  that  conscious  intelligence  was  absent  from  the 


THE  RESIDUUM  OF  FAITH  17 

universe  till  organized  matter  attained  the  degree  of  dif- 
ferentiated complexity  seen  in  nervous  tissue,  and  that 
our  lantern  of  knowledge  is  the  supreme  light  and  there 
is  no  Sun?  Even  Schopenhauer,  bent  above  all  things 
upon  the  avoidance  of  assumptions,  found  implicit  in  the 
process  of  evolution  the  "will-to-be/5  The  conditioning 
of  phenomena  by  each  other  throws  no  light  upon  the 
ultimate  nature  of  causation  or  the  origin  of  phenomena 
as  such.  The  swinging  of  planets  and  stars  and  the 
unfolding  of  buds  in  spring,  every  process  of  nature,  the 
rhythmic  surging  of  the  ions  in  every  atom,  alike  imply 
the  Causation  which  transcends  our  search.  According 
to  the  theories  of  physicists,  all  material  phenomena  are 
processes  of  movement,  exhibitions  of  power.  Life 
differs  from  the  inorganic  only  in  being  a  more  intricate 
and  more  obvious  process.  Nature  is  a  system  of  activi- 
ties, continuously  caused,  and  kept  in  being  by  the  unceas- 
ing operation  of  power. 

But  when  we  speak  thus  of  power  we  must  remember 
that  "power"  and  "causation"  are  synonymous  terms; 
and  that  each,  when  used  in  this  sense,  is  but  a  name  for 
our  ignorance;  that  by  power  or  causation  we  mean  the 
inconceivable  Beyond,  the  existence  of  which  our  knowl- 
edge of  the  limitation  of  our  powers,  and  all  that  we 
know  within  the  compass  of  our  powers,  implies,  but  of 
which  our  knowledge  affords  no  description.  We  mean 
the  Causation  which  we  cannot  discover  but  which  we 
infer  to  be  adequate  to  the  continuous  maintenance  of 
such  a  universe  as  this. 

If  we  are  practically  forced  by  the  constitution  of  our 
minds  to  infer  the  existence  of  Causation  adequate  con- 
tinuously to  maintain  such  a  universe  as  this,  shall  we 


1 8  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

also  infer  that  there  is  Intelligence  that  transcends  and 
includes  the  intelligence  which  is  conditioned  by  metab- 
olism in  our  nervous  tissues  as  the  Power  that  main- 
tains the  universe  transcends  the  energy  released  in  our 
muscular  contractions?  It  appears  that  many  can  no 
more  escape  the  second  inference  than  the  first. 

Even  if  the  thought  of  Intelligence  adequate  to  include 
all  the  processes  of  a  universe  like  this  be  but  a  doubtful 
inference,  if  the  existence  of  such  Intelligence  be  only  a 
possibility  that  we  can  neither  affirm  nor  deny,  an  hy- 
pothesis which  we  can  neither  prove  nor  disprove,  that  is 
as  likely  to  be  false  as  true,  and,  for  aught  we  know,  as 
likely  to  be  true  as  false,  still  it  may  have  significance 
for  man.  If  a  sound  heard  from  the  distance  either  may 
or  may  not  be  a  cry  for  help  by  my  boy  who  is  swim- 
ming, I  act  precisely  as  if  I  knew  it  to  be  his  cry.  I  can- 
not listen  and  then  say:  "I  am  unable  to  tell  whether 
it  is  his  cry  for  help  or  not,  and  so  I  will  ignore  the 
sound."  Passive  agnosticism  toward  such  a  doubt  is 
unreasonable  to  the  last  degree.  I  must  act  as  if  the 
possible  were  the  actual.  And  it  may  be  that  so  long  as 
there  is  any  possibility  that  there  is  a  God  who  knows 
and  cares  for  every  man,  to  act  on  that  possibility  is  the 
only  rationality.  That  would  be  true  if  it  were  also  true 
that  only  by  acting  on  that  hypothesis  can  human  life 
be  saved  from  failure.  And  there  are  many  who  tell  us 
that  to  act  as  if  the  substance  of  the  universe  were  Intelli- 
gence as  well  as  Causation,  Intelligence  in  which  all  our 
fragmentary  consciousness  flows  on,  that  to  act  as  if  the 
power  which  functions  consciously  in  us  were  part  of  the 
power  and  consciousness  that  continuously  creates  all  life 
and  being,  that  to  act  as  if  our  thought  and  our  act  were 


THE  RESIDUUM  OF  FAITH  19 

part  of  the  realization  in  us  and  in  society  of  a  personal 
ideal  and  a  social  cooperation  which  is  the  will  of  God 
and  which  struggles  toward  realization  in  our  endeavor, 
is  the  only  mode  of  action  by  which  our  individual  and 
social  possibilities  can  be  realized. 

It  may  be  that  the  reason  why  such  faith  as  this  is 
difficult  or  impossible  to  many  minds,  is  that  it  is  not 
such  a  faith  as  this  that  churches,  teachers,  and  all  the 
usual  organized  functionaries  of  religion  have  demanded 
of  us  and  shed  about  us  by  their  preaching  and  their  art 
of  ceremonial.  They  have  too  often  demanded,  and 
are  demanding  still,  other  faiths  than  faith  in  God,  as 
God  can  be  conceived  by  one  who  has  outgrown  the 
anthropomorphic  belittling  of  Deity.  We  cannot  con- 
ceive of  a  God  whose  power  is  exercised  by  the  contrac- 
tion of  muscular  tissue,  of  a  God  whose  intelligence 
functions  by  the  metabolism  of  neuroses.  The  processes 
of  nature  laugh  at  such  a  conception  of  Divinity.  We 
cannot  put  God  in  human  form.  Nor  can  we  implore 
Him  to  do  his  obvious  duties,  nor  conceive  of  Him  as  in- 
terfering with  the  orderly  processes  of  nature  in  response 
to  the  contradictory  petitions  of  men.  Nor  can  we  find 
a  revelation  of  God  in  magic  or  miracle  such  as  charac- 
terize the  mythology  of  a  hundred  outgrown  supersti- 
tions. If  we  pray,  it  cannot  be  for  gifts  of  special 
favoritism  elicited  by  our  pleadings,  but  rather  for  the 
sake  of  high  communion,  and  all  our  prayers  will  be 
elaborations  of  the  one  prayer  "Hallowed  be  Thy  name, 
Thy  will  be  done,  Thy  kingdom  of  fulfillment  come." 
And  to  discover  what  that  will  is  as  revealed  in  the  laws 
of  nature  which  are  the  method  of  life,  and  to  make  our 


20  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

actions  its   fulfillment  will  be  to  us  the  law  and  the 
prophets. 

Whether  such  a  residuum  of  faith  remains  and  stirs 
the  mind  of  a  given  individual  or  not  the  plain  course  for 
us  is  to  seek  for  guidance  in  the  facts  of  life.  If  there 
is  either  duty  or  opportunity  we  must  seek  and  find  it  in 
the  realities  that  lie  within  the  circle  of  our  comprehen- 
sion, this  little  circle  of  light  in  which  we  walk  and  see. 
If  there  is  a  God  who  cares  for  man  we  shall  truly  learn 
His  will  only  by  the  appeal  to  life's  realities  or  by  listen- 
ing to  teachers  who  have  made  this  appeal.  If  there  is 
a  Personal  Deity  whose  consciousness  includes  all  human 
consciousness  and  whose  will  includes  all  duty  and  worth 
and  the  fulfillment  of  every  good  human  possibility,  then 
the  search  for  a  naturalistic  ethics  by  investigation  of 
social  realities  is  nothing  less  than  search  for  the  laws 
of  God,  as  revealed  in  the  terms  of  the  problem  which 
He  has  set  us.  And  any  of  us  who,  because  of  the  loss 
of  anthropomorphic  conceptions  on  which  they  have 
been  accustomed  to  depend,  and  because  of  the  incredi- 
bility of  the  forms  of  religion  which  have  been  presented 
to  them  and  against  which  they  have  revolted,  or  because 
of  the  example  of  those  whose  influence  they  chiefly  feel, 
or  on  account  of  the  vagueness  and  uncertainty  of  the 
residuum  of  faith,  are  unable  to  adjust  themselves  to 
noble  zeal  by  the  thought  of  God,  they  above  all  other 
men  are  bound  either  to  despair  of  finding  in  life  any 
high  meaning  or  else  to  seek  such  meaning  in  that  observ- 
able reality  in  which  alone  they  confide.  To  those  who 
feel  no  kindling  of  the  moral  flame  at  thought  of  any 
personality  above  mankind,  nor  any  consolation  drawn 
from  beyond  the  compass  of  the  life  we  know,  to  such 


THE  RESIDUUM  OF  FAITH  21 

the  search  for  the  naturalistic  ethics  is  the  quest  for  the 
rationale  of  our  existence,  for  the  only  source  of  guid- 
ance and  motive  by  which  our  life  can  escape  a  reductio 
ad  absurdum,  for  the  matter-of-fact  method  of  individ- 
ual endeavor  and  social  cooperation  which  alone  can  dis- 
close whatever  meaning  and  worth  our  life  contains  and 
afford  guidance  and  zest,  exaltation  and  power. 

The  function  of  religion  is  to  produce  a  psychological 
adjustment,  by  which  the  conscious  and  subconscious 
sources  from  which  our  actions  and  experience  flow  will 
be  adjusted  to  joy  and  to  achievement.  The  powers  of 
man  are  latent  or  half  latent  till  touched  by  an  ennobling 
and  gladdening  thought.  One  cannot  summon  his  best 
self  by  a  mere  act  of  will.  Its  coming,  like  every  other 
phenomenon  of  nature,  is  the  result  of  the  necessary 
condition.  The  necessary  condition  is  the  ennobling 
thought.  It  must  be  a  thought  often  renewed.  A  man 
can  no  more  be  his  best  without  frequent  renewal  of 
attention  to  the  ideas  which  to  him  are  most  potent  for 
this  adjustment  than  a  watcH  can  run  without  winding. 

Of  all  the  ideas  that  have  adjusted  men  to  satisfying 
and  productive  life,  the  idea  of  God,  as  one  in  whose 
consciousness  every  thought  or  act  of  man  is  compre- 
hended and  whose  will  is  the  sum  of  all  good,  has  prob- 
ably been  the  most  potent,  or  potent  for  the  greatest 
number  of  individuals.  There  is,  however,  one  other 
thought  that  has  this  power  of  adjustment,  of  calling 
forth  the  serene  and  balanced  and  potent  man  who  is  the 
highest  of  all  the  multiple  possibilities  inwrought  in  the 
complex  structure  of  the  human  organism ;  and  this  other 
is  the  idea  of  human  life  as  a  Social  Fact,  of  individual 
life  as  participation  in  humanity's  past,  present  and 


22  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

future.  By  participation  in  humanity's  past  we  derive  all 
that  elevates  us  distinctly  above  the  naked  savage  or  even 
the  dumb  brute.  From  the  fact  that  we  participate  in 
humanity's  present  and  are  among  the  parents  of  human- 
ity's future  we  derive  the  true  philosophy  of  life  which 
affords  us  motive  and  adjustment.  Human  life  is  social 
life.  The  fundamental  and  interpretative  fact  for  us  to 
recognize  is  the  extent  to  which  as  human  beings  our  life 
is  an  effect  and  a  cause  of  the  life  of  our  associates.  We 
live  a  truly  human  life  and  find  our  happiness  and  worth 
only  when  we  are  guided  by  the  habitual  realization  that 
we  are  participants  in  a  common  and  cooperative  enter- 
prise of  creating  and  maintaining  an  evolving  social  situ- 
ation which  affords  to  all  mankind  the  opportunities  and 
the  very  content  of  truly  human  existence.  In  our  per- 
sonal contacts  of  the  household  and  the  neighborhood, 
and  in  our  wider  and  more  impersonal  relations  of  busi- 
ness and  politics,  in  all  of  our  activities,  we  are  essentially 
participants  in  this  cooperative  enterprise. 

This,  when  duly  comprehended,  is  the  most  inspiring 
thought  that  can  enter  the  mind  of  man.  It  alone  affords 
a  true  interpretation  of  life,  reveals  life's  worth,  evokes 
our  full  powers,  and  attunes  to  normal  happiness. 

Religion  built  upon  the  unknown  and  the  unknowable, 
great  as  its  services  have  been  and  still  are,  has  often 
obstructed  thought  and  obscured  duty.  It  has  occupied 
men  too  much  with  keeping  their  own  souls  out  of  hell 
and  getting  them  into  heaven  and  too  little  with  the 
task  of  transforming  the  social  life  of  homes  and  neigh- 
borhoods, cities  and  nations,  into  a  kingdom  of  heaven. 
Priests  have  insisted  upon  observances  while  prophets 
have  had  to  cry  out:  "I  hate,  I  despise  your  solemn 


THE  RESIDUUM  OF  FAITH  23 

assemblies;  take  away  from  me  the  noise  of  thy  songs, 
for  I  will  not  hearken  to  the  melody  of  thy  viols.  But 
let  judgment  run  down  as  waters  and  righteousness  as  a 
mighty  stream."  The  Founder  of  the  Christian  religion 
exhausted  the  resources  of  denunciation  against  those 
who  were  punctilious  in  religious  observances  but  who 
had  no  share  in  His  militant  righteousness.  He  made 
the  sole  criterion  of  acceptance :  "Ye  have  done  it  or  ye 
did  it  not,  to  these  my  brethren,"  and  called  upon  his 
followers  to  "take  up  the  cross,"  that  is  to  say,  to  pay 
their  part  of  the  cost  of  remaking  the  world.  Yet  I  have 
heard  the  pastor  of  a  college  church  declare  that  in  com- 
parison with  failure  to  accept  the  mystic  theory  of 
Christ's  person  theft  and  adultery  were  trivial  matters. 
Disproportionate  emphasis  upon  the  mystical  elements  in 
religion  has  allowed  some  pious  sinners,  while  diligent  in 
the  observances  that  were  expected  to  save  their  own 
souls,  to  be  remiss  in  their  primary  human  duties.  Per- 
haps it  has  led  but  few  to  put  into  words  the  argument 
that  the  best  solution  of  the  problem  of  poverty  and 
ignorance  is  to  let  unsanitary  modes  of  life,  pestilence 
and  war  hurry  earth's  unfortunate  millions  into  heaven 
after  as  brief  a  stay  as  possible  in  their  sublunary  purga- 
tory. But  the  idea  that  Lazarus,  if  he  would  only  accept 
the  gospel,  might  soon  be  in  Abraham's  bosom  has  lulled 
men's  consciences  and  is  partly  responsible  for  the  fact 
that  slums  have  continued  to  fester  and  wars  to  prevail 
while  churches  busied  themselves  with  other-worldliness, 
half  forgetting  that  it  is  only  in  as  much  as  they  have 
done  good  or  taught  men  to  do  good  unto  the  least  of  the 
brothers  of  the  Son  of  Man  that  they  have  justified  their 
existence.  To  base  our  religion,  that  is  to  say,  our  per- 


24  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

sonal  adjustment,  too  much  on  ideas  about  the  unseen 
and  the  hereafter  is  to  pervert  life  and  to  blind  us  to  our 
actual  duties  and  opportunities.  It  is  difficult  to  doubt 
that  this  cause  is  in  part  responsible  for  the  fact  that  the 
real  task  of  humanity  has  been  largely  shirked;  that  we 
have  lacked  and  still  lack  such  a  great  prophetic  propa- 
ganda as  the  case  requires,  summoning  men  by  the  voice 
of  all  religious  leaders  and  by  the  common  conscience  to 
meet  the  clear  requirements  of  that  task;  that  the  natural 
idealism  of  generous  youth  is  so  little  enlisted  in  truly 
religious  devotion  to  that  task;  and  that  the  majority  of 
us  do  not  even  see  that  the  line  between  good  men  and 
bad  men  is  the  line  between  those  whose  lives  are  dom- 
inated and  those  whose  lives  fail  to  be  dominated  by  the 
fact  that  from  dawn  to  dark  life  is  participation  in  the 
Cooperative  Enterprise. 

Millions  of  the  intelligent,  and  of  the  young,  have  lost, 
or  never  had,  the  religion  of  the  Invisible.  Many  others 
cling  to  it  coldly,  though  it  has  no  power  to  inspire  them. 
They  cling  to  it  because  they  see  no  other  source  of 
inspiration  and  its  institutionalism  keeps  it  alive  for  them. 
We  must  have  religion.  That  is,  we  must  have  a  com- 
mon vitalizing  conception.  Multitudes  can  never  get  the 
old  religion  back.  It  may  be  far  better  so.  In  religion, 
as  in  medicine  or  agriculture,  facts  afford  a  better  guide 
and  a  clearer  summons  than  the  speculation  that  pre- 
ceded knowledge.  We  can  get  our  adjustment  from  the 
contemplation  of  observable  reality.  We  can  get  it  by 
opening  our  eyes  to  the  social  fact,  the  fact  of  our  mem- 
bership, our  inevitable  membership — disregarded  and 
shirked,  or  loyally  accepted — in  the  Cooperative  Enter- 
prise. 


THE  RESIDUUM  OF  FAITH  25 

Our  adjustment  will  then  come  from  cherishing  an 
idea  that  is  demonstrably  true,  the  significance  of  which 
grows  with  our  intelligence.  It  does  not  desert  the  adult 
mind  in  a  scientific  age,  but  as  we  advance  it  grows  in 
power  to  elicit  personal  adaptation  to  life's  exigencies. 
It  is  a  somewhat  recondite  idea  unadapted  to  the  needs 
of  a  too  juvenile  and  ignorant  humanity.  It  is  an  idea 
the  full  meaning  of  which  requires  to  be  expounded,  an 
idea  not  yet  formed  with  any  adequacy  in  the  minds  of 
the  majority  of  men.  But  it  is  an  idea  that  harmonizes 
with  our  social  instincts,  that  is  applicable  to  all  the  rela- 
tions of  life,  that  is  adequate  as  the  major  premise  of 
our  philosophy,  the  fountain  of  our  sentiments  and  the 
mainspring  of  our  conduct.  And  when  once  developed 
and  popularized,  as  it  some  day  will  be,  it  will  be  intel- 
ligible to  all  normal  minds. 

From  the  fact  of  our  social  nature  it  results  that 
neither  the  thought  of  God  nor  the  thought  of  participa- 
tion in  the  social  life  inspires  us  to  our  best  unless  that 
thought  is  the  common  property  of  our  group.  The 
weakness  of  an  age  of  transition  is  its  lack  of  social 
agreement.  Neither  a  residuum  of  faith,  purged  of  an- 
thropomorphism and  superstition,  nor  the  contemplation 
of  the  social  reality  can  adequately  serve  the  purpose  of 
inspiration  and  adjustment  unless  institutionalized,  that 
is  to  say,  rationally  adopted  as  a  social  agreement.  It  is 
reasonable  to  hope,  and  experience  already  justifies  the 
hope,  that  an  adequate  recognition  of  the  social  reality, 
of  all  human  life  as  a  participation,  and  of  normal  human 
life  as  a  cooperation,  if  once  it  becomes  institutionalized, 
§0  as  to  be  reflected  upon  us  each  from  the  common  life, 


26  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

in  literature,  in  ritual,1  and  by  the  social  atmosphere  of 
suggestion  and  sympathetic  radiation,  will  serve  the 
essential  purposes  of  religion;  that  is  to  say,  it  will  adjust 
the  intricate  mechanism  of  conscious  life  to  attainment 
of  life's  highest  individual  and  social  fulfillment. 

JThe  word  "ritual"  is  used  by  sociologists  to  mean  something 
more  than  religious  observance.  It  is  the  whole  system  of  cus- 
tomary activity  by  which  the  adopted  ideas  and  sentiments  of  a 
society  are  expressed,  inculcated,  and  put  into  practice. 


CHAPTER  III 
SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

Sociology  sprang  from  two  roots,  one  in  scientific,  the 
other  in  practical,  interest.  As  a  scientific  movement,  its. 
first  great  names  are  those  of  Auguste  Comte  and  Her- 
bert Spencer.  As  a  practical  movement,  its  origin  is 
represented  by  such  names  as  those  of  John  Ruskin, 
Charles  Kingsley,  Frederick  Dennison  Maurice,  and 
Arnold  Toynbee.  Whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  fruits 
of  their  labors,  the  sociological  movement  has  never 
been  without  adherents  whose  personal  and  intellectual 
qualities  command  respect.  These  two  roots  out  of 
which  sociology  has  sprung  correspond  to  the  two  great 
changes  that  differentiate  the  modern  mental  outlook 
from  that  of  the  past.  The  first  of  these  is  the  "scientific 
spirit,"  the  second  is  the  "social  spirit." 

The  scientific  spirit  is  the  tendency  and  determination, 
in  studying  every  division  of  reality,  to  replace  mere 
speculation  guided  by  prejudice  and  preference  with  the 
patient  investigation  of  facts  through  the  application  of 
the  experimental  or  the  comparative  method,  and  with 
the  interpretation  of  facts  in  accordance  with  the  hypothe- 
sis that  among  them  all  there  is  a  universal  causal  inter- 
relationship.1 

*Tp  common  sense  the  expressions  "facts"  and   "causal   inter- 
relationship" are  perfectly  intelligible,  but  speculative  skepticism, 

37 


28  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

The  second  great  difference  between  the  present  and 
the  past  is  the  social  spirit.  The  social  spirit  is  the  sense 
that  the  normal  goal  of  endeavor  is  the  realization  of 
life's  possibilities  of  good,  not  by  a  few  whose  welfare 
rests  upon  the  bent  backs  of  the  mass,  but  by  all  normal 
human  beings  in  proportion  as  they  are  endowed  with  the 
possibilities  of  good  experience. 

Given  the  advent  of  the  scientific  spirit  and  of  the 
social  spirit,  the  coming  of  sociology  was  just  as  inevit- 
able as  any  other  step  in  evolution  when  the  antecedent 
conditions  were  fulfilled.  Sociology,  in  one  of  its  aspects, 
is  an  intellectual  movement  which  consists  in  carrying 
the  scientific  attitude  into  the  study  of  human  life.  In 
its  other  aspect,  sociology  consists  in  turning  our  minds 
to  the  great  task  to  which  humanity  in  general  has  thus 
far  never  set  itself,  the  necessarily  cooperative  task  of 
the  comprehensive  realization  of  life's  possibilities  of 
good  experience. 

Obviously  these  two  aspects  of  sociology,  if  success- 
fully carried  out,  would  be  related  to  each  other  as  any 
science  is  related  to  its  applications.  And,  as  obviously, 
science  must  come  before  the  applications  of  science. 
The  greatest  danger  of  sociology  is  that  eagerness  for 
application  will  divert  men  from  the  strictly  scientific 
pursuit  upon  which  both  comprehension  and  application 
ultimately  depend.  Preoccupation  with  practical  aims 
may  even  obscure  the  fact  that  sociology  has  a  distinctive 
scientific  task.  Practical  aims  cannot  be  expected  to 
define  the  field  of  a  science.  Such  aims  are  likely  to  call, 

while  groping  for  solutions,  has  surrounded  them  with  a  smother 
of  obscurity.  I  must  use  these  and  similar  expressions  with  the 
meanings  which  we  are  obliged  to  give  to  them  in  everyday  practical 
life  and  in  science.  This  matter  is  discussed  in  Chapter  XII. 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS  29 

not  for  the  application,  still  less  for  the  creation,  of  a 
single  science,  but  rather  for  the  application  of  any  num- 
ber of  sciences.  Thus  scientific  agriculture  is  not  itself 
a  science  but  a  combination  of  applications  of  zoology, 
botany,  chemistry,  physics,  and  even  economics.  And 
scientific  medicine  is  the  application  of  numerous  sciences, 
including  physiology,  bacteriology,  chemistry,  psychol- 
ogy, and  physics  (with  its  trusses,  splints,  bone-splicing, 
radium,  and  Rontgen  rays).  Likewise,  the  solution  of 
concrete  problems  of  social  welfare  may  require  the 
application  of  many  sciences.  Successful  practice  re- 
quires the  combination  of  knowledge  drawn  from  all  the 
sciences  that  apply  to  the  purpose  in  hand;  and  there  is 
no  absurdity  when  the  agriculturist  combines  knowledge 
drawn  from  biology,  chemistry,  and  economics ;  or  when 
the  physician  combines  knowledge  drawn  from  physi- 
ology, bacteriology,  chemistry,  and  physics ;  or  when  the 
social  worker,  together  with  the  application  of  his  knowl- 
edge about  customs,  organizations,  and  other  social 
facts,  combines  application  of  knowledge  about  tenement 
architecture,  sanitary  engineering,  and  of  any  applicable 
physical  science.  One  may  believe  that  sociology  is  be- 
coming a  "practical  science"  in  the  sense  in  which  agri- 
culture and  medicine  are  "practical  sciences"  and  still* 
doubt  whether  it  can  ever  be  a  truly  fundamental  science. 
I  am  not  employing  the  name  "sociology"  to  designate 
merely  the  effort  to  concentrate  all  possible  light  upon 
certain  pressing  practical  problems.  I  assume  that  to  be 
a  perfectly  normal  exercise  of  intelligence.  But  there  are 
distinctly  social  facts  and  there  should  be  distinctly  social 
science.  The  only  question  is  how  many  social  sciences 
should  there  be.  The  word  "sociology"  at  the  head  oi 


*— 7 


30  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

this  chapter  does  not  refer  merely,  nor  mainly,  to  "social 
economics"  or  "social  technology/'  considered  as  the 
art  of  applying  all  pertinent  knowledge  to  the  problems 
of  general  welfare,  but  rather  to  sociology  as  a  specific 
fundamental  science,  that  is,  as  an  effort  to -analyze, 
evaluate,  and  account  for  the  content  of  human  life  in 
terms  applicable  to  all  its  divisions,  economic,  political, 
ethical,  and  whatever  else,  in  so  far  as  the  content  of 
human  life  is  made  up  of  ideas,  sentiments,  and  practices 
that  are  not  peculiar  to  individuals,  but  are  the  common 
property  of,  groups  and  that  have  resulted  from  a  social 

evolution.  / 
i 

Now  "ethics  also,  like  sociology,  has  both  a  practical 
and  a  theoretical  side.  Ethics  in  its  practical,  as  distin- 
guished from  its  scientific,  aspect  is  the  sum  total  of 
those  requirements  of  wisdom  and  knowledge  which  at 
one  juncture  jor  another  may  become  the  "duty"  of  a 
good  man.  ^And  ethics  of  this  practical  sort,  if  ade- 
quately informed,  would  be  closely  related  to  "practical" 
sociology,  if  not  identical  with  it./  The  distinction  be- 
tween the  two  would  be  that  hitherto  practical  ethics  has 
emphasized  the  individual  aspect,  and  practical  sociology 
the  social  aspect  of  life,  which  is  after  all  one  life  having 
both  aspects.  As  a  result  of  this  difference  of  emphasis, 
sociology  has  given  more  attention  to  detailed  informa- 
tion about  the  opportunities  and  requirements  of  coopera- 
tive service  than  has  practical  ethics.  But  all  would  agree 
that  these  requirements  of  cooperative  service  are  prop- 
erly within  the  scope  of  practical  ethics,  f  It  is  equally 
true  that  the  requirements  of  private  and  personal  virtue 
can  be  formulated  only  in  the  light  of  social  knowledge, 
and  that  they  are  formulated  in  judgments  and  senti- 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS  31 

ments  that  have  been  developed  through  social  evolution 
and  spread  by  social  contacts. 

Furthermore,  the  theoretical  or  fundamental  aspects 
of  ethics  and  of  sociology  coincide  as  truly  as  do  their 
practical  aspects.  Ethics,  in  its  more  fundamental 
aspect,  is  a  set  of  general  questions  about  life  with  tenta- 
tive or  final  answers  to  these  questions.  The  thesis  of 
this  chapter  is  that  sociology  as  a  science,  or  at  least  as 
an  attempt  to  carry  on  a  study  of  life  in  a  scientific  spirit, 
cannot  escape  those  very  questions  which  are  the  prob- 
lems of  ethics,  and  furthermore,  that  the  only  intellec- 
tually satisfying  method  of  seeking  the  answers  to  those 
questions  is  to  be  found,  not  in  a  priori  speculation, 
which  has  been  the  historical  method  in  ethics,  but  rather 
in  that  investigation  of  the  facts  of  human  life  which  is 
the  work  of  sociology. 

However,  all  this  is  not  intended  to  imply  that  soci- 
ology is  ethics  and  nothing  else.  Sociology  is  the  attempt 
to  study  in  a  truly  scientific  spirit  and  by  a  broadly  com- 
parative method  that  conscious  life  of  man  which  is  also 
the  life  of  society  and  which  can  evolve  as  it  does  only  in 
society  and  as  the  life  of  society.  It  must  seek  to  give  an 
objectively  true  description  of  all  the  general  traits  of 
that  life,  of  the  forms  of  determining  relationship  be- 
tween that  life  and  its  material  environment,  and  between 
the  various  parts  included  in  that  life  itself.  It  is  a 
sufficiently  huge  claim  for  sociology  to  say  that  sociology 
is  ethics.  |But  one  cannot  look  upon  the  task  just  stated 
without  seeing  that  sociology  of  this  fundamental  sort, 
if  it  is  anything  valid,  must  He  scientific  ethics  and  also 
much  more  besides.  ]  The  descriptive  analysis  of  social 
life  and  of  the  types  of  interrelationship  by  which  its 


32  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

content  is  determined  apply  to  the  elucidation,  not  only 
of  those  differences  in  human  experience  considered  as 
an  end  which  are  designated  by  the  terms  "good"  and 
"evil,"  and  to  the  evolution  of  those  judgments  and  sen- 
timents as  to  human  conduct  considered  as  a  means  which 
constitute  the  varying  conscience  codes  of  different 
peoples,  determining  what  they  regard  as  "right"  and 
"wrong,"  but  they  apply  also  to  the  evolution  of  lan- 
guages, religions,  governments  and  laws,  economic  wants 
and  practices,  esthetic  arts,  and  plays  and  ceremonies. 

Thus  the  Australian's  code  for  dividing  a  kangaroo 
with  his  relatives,  American  football  and  baseball,  trial 
by  jury,  monogamy,  baptism  by  immersion,  a  vocabulary, 
or  any  other  social  reality,  have  all  had  a  social  evolu- 
tion to  which  the  same  principles  of  explanation  are 
applicable.  Geographic  conditions  mold  religion  and 
morality  as  well  as  government  and  household  arts.2  The 
biological  traits  of  a  population  have  a  bearing  upon  all 
divisions  of  their  life.  The  invention  of  the  spinning 
jenny  or  the  printing  press  has  moral  and  political,  as 
well  as  economic,  consequences.  Imitation  is  as  potent 
in  shaping  religious  rites  as  in  determining  the  pronun- 
ciation of  words.  Tastes  for  art  and  games  radiate  just 
as  moral  sentiments  do.  Suggestion,  imitation,  and  sym- 
pathetic radiation  operate  in  the  political,  economic,  re- 
ligious, artistic,  linguistic,  and  ethical  realm,  and  in  each 
depend  for  growth  or  decline  of  their  efficiency  upon  com- 
petition between  the  prestige  of  the  venerable  and  prestige 
of  the  novel,  prestige  of  the  mob  and  prestige  of  the  elite, 
and  prestige  of  half  a  score  of  types  familiar  to  the  soci- 

*  Compare  Chapter  III  entitled  "Geographic  Causes  and  Their  So- 
cial Effects,"  in  the  writer's  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Sociology. 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS  33 

ologist.  Social  elements  of  every  sort  adjust  themselves 
to  the  preexisting  social  order  or  reconstruct  it  according 
to  the  same  recognized  methods  of  assimilation  and  ac- 
commodation, and  survive  or  disappear  by  virtue  of  the 
same  selective  and  eliminating  agencies.  The  stubborn- 
ness of  unreasoning  custom  is  explicable  by  the  same 
analysis,  whether  in  religion,  popular  science,  language, 
morals,  politics  or  economic  wants,  and  arts.  And  if  in 
one  of  these  fields  there  is  more  of  custom  and  in  another 
more  of  fashion  and  in  another  more  of  rational  institu- 
tion, these  differences  are  problems  for  explanation  which 
exhibit  variations  in  the  application  of  constant  principles 
that  hold  good  for  all  social  phenomena. 

If  geography  develops  "social  geography"  until  the 
conditioning  relations  of  natural  physical  environment  to 
social  life  are  thoroughly  explored;  if  psychology  de- 
velops social  psychology  until  it  brings  within  its  purview 
prevalent  opinions,  social  valuations — economic,  esthetic, 
and  ethical — and  such  typical  social  concretes  as  fashions, 
customs,  and  institutions  and  analyzes  them  into  their 
essential  and  characteristic  psychic  elements,  and  traces 
in  detail  the  types  of  conditioning  relations  between  the 
activities  of  associates;  if  economics  becomes  more  psy- 
chological as  well  as  more  historical,  and  if  it  extends 
the  study  of  consumption  so  far  as  to  observe  the  social 
effects  of  the  different  forms,  amounts,  and  distribution 
of  wealth;  if  political  science  also  becomes  far  more 
psychological  and  adequately  studies  the  rise  and  play 
of  interests  which  is  the  soul  of  political  movements  and 
studies  the  correlation  between  political  opinions,  senti- 
ments, and  activities  and  all  the  other  elements  in  social 
life;  if  history  avails  itself  of  the  results  achieved  by 


34  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

the  completer  social  psychology  and  social  geography  as 
well  as  those  of  physical  anthropology,  and  if  each  of 
these  social  sciences  observes  how  far  the  very  types  of 
conditioning  which  operate  within  its  field  of  inquiry 
operate  in  all  the  others,  then  it  may  be  that  all  the  things 
of  which  sociologists  feel  the  need  will  have  been  done 
in  a  fragmentary  and  scattered  way,3  except  one,  and 
that  there  will  then  remain  no  task  for  sociology,  except 
the.  task  of  a  scientific,  as  contrasted  with  a  merely  specu* 
lative,  ethics.  There  will  still  be  as  real  a  need  of  ethics 
as  of  economics  or  of  political  science  or  of  history,  and 
by  that  time  all  of  the  enlightened  world  will  realize  that 
the  ethics  needed  must  be  a  study  of  objective  reality — • 
of  the  facts  of  social  life. 

By  the  time  that  sociology  can  be  ethics  and  nothing 
else  every  social  scientist  will  have  become  a  sociologist; 
that  is  to  say,  he  will  be  on  guard  against  the  perversion 
or  inadequacy  in  his  explanations  that  might  result  from 
the  narrowing  kind  of  specialization,  and  above  all  he 
will  take  account  of  those  more  fundamental  principles  of 
analysis  and  explanation  which  apply  to  all  social  reali- 
ties. For  the  present  sociology  aims,  first,  to  develop 
and  emphasize  those  essential  principles  of  description 
and  explanation  which  are  common  to  all  the  subdivisions 
of  social  reality,  but  which  students  engrossed  with  the 
special  aspects  of  a  single  subdivision  of  social  reality 
have  largely  overlooked,  though  they  are  essential  to  the 
explanation  of  every  social  reality,  economic,  political, 
ethical,  religious,  artistic,  or  linguistic;  and,  second, 

'On  the  disadvantages  of  separating  among  diverse  sciences  the 
contributions  to  the  one  task  of  explaining  social  life,  see  an  article 
by  the  writer  entitled  "Sociology,  Geography,  Psychology"  in  the 
American  Journal  of  Sociology,  xiv.  371. 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS  35 

sociology  aims  to  extend  the  scientific  spirit  to  that  par- 
ticular division  of  social  reality  which  is  the  field  of 
ethics. 

Thus,  sociology,  in  its  more  fundamental  or  scientific 
aspect,  deals  with  two  classes  of  problems:  one,  general, 
a  search  for  those  principles  of  explanation  and  evolution 
which  apply  to  all  divisions  of  social  life;  the  other, 
specific,  and  applying  only  to  ethics.  Speaking  figura- 
tively of  these  two  classes  of  problems,  we  may  say  that 
the  first  relates  to  the  terminus  ab  quo  and  the  second  to 
the  terminus  ad  quern  of  the  life  man  lives  in  society. 
The  first,  in  other  words,  asks  how  are  the  social  realities 
caused;  the  second,  in  what  good  or  evil  do  they  issue. 
Adequate  study  of  either  of  these  two  sets  of  problems 
involves  the  other.  Description  of  human  life  for  pur- 
poses of  causal  explanation  would  leave  out  the  most 
distinctive  facts  if  it  omitted  reference  to  good  and  evil, 
joy  and  pain,  as  features  in  the  description;  and  ethics, 
the  specific  study  of  good  and  evil,  becomes  scientific  only 
as  a  result  of  knowledge  concerning  those  methods  of 
causation  which  apply  to  good  and  evil  as  well  as  to  all 
the  other  elements  of  social  life. 

The  first  fundamental  problem  of  ethics,  What  is 
good?  can  be  answered  only  by  actual  human  experience. 
The  other  fundamental  question,  What  is  right?  can  be 
answered  only  by  knowledge  of  the  effects  of  different 
forms  of  social  conduct  on  human  experience.  The  sup- 
plementary question,  What  is  the  nature  and  origin  of 
the  different  moral  codes?  is  wholly  a  problem  in  social 
evolution. 

The  study  of  ethics  here  discussed  is  neither  sentiment 
nor  a  priori  speculation.  It  is  a  matter-of-fact  research. 


36  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

Nothing  here  contained  is  intended  to  voice  the  absurd 
claim  that  sociologists  are  more  ethical  than  other  men, 
nor  to  admit  the  imputation  that  ^sociologists  are  more 
sentimental  than  other  scientists.  /What  is  meant  is  this : 
that  sociologists  are  to  study  human  life  in  its  broadest 
and  most  fundamental  aspects,  and  that  the  facts  per- 
taining to  human  life  contain  the  only  satisfactory 
answers  to  the  problems  of  ethics/  One  by  one,  the 
sciences  have  gone  over  from  the  realm  of  preknowledge, 
the  realm  of  philosophy  and  metaphysics  in  the  bad  a 
priori  sense,  to  the  realm  of  philosophy  in  the  good  sense 
of  ever-widening  interpretative  correlation  of  facts. 
Before  the  beginning  of  the  intellectual  movement,  which 
is  identified  with  the  names  of  Comte  and  Spencer,  the 
study  of  human  life,  most  of  all  in  its  religious  and 
ethical  aspects,  had  been  mainly  of  the  bad  a  priori  kind. 
The  work  of  Comte  was  the  great  original 4  protest 
against  the  assumption  that  the  philosopher  had  no  need 
of  facts  beyond  those  which  chanced  to  come  within  the 
compass  of  his  knowledge.  The  work  of  Spencer,  tenta- 
tive and  partly  erroneous  as  it  was,  at  least  set  the  ex- 
ample of  reliance  upon  an  extensive  and  carefully 
gathered  body  of  facts  about  the  life  of  people  in  every 
continent  and  in  every  stage  of  progress. 

Spencer5  carefully  pointed  out  that  thought  about 
human  life  does  not  escape  from  perverting  "biases" 
without  the  most  determined  loyalty  to  facts.  Until  men 
derive  their  views  of  life  from  wide  knowledge  of  facts, 
as  a  rule  they  cannot  do  otherwise  than  adopt  such 

*  "Original"  is  a  relative  term,  as  "great"  is. 

8  The  Study  of  Sociology,  c.  viii-xii ;  cf.  also  P.  G.  Hammerton, 
The  Intellectual  Life,  Part  II,  Letter  3,  on  "The  Supreme  Virtue 
for  the  Intellectual  Life." 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS  37 

notions  as  are  furnished  by  the  groups  to  which  they 
belong  and  as  suit  their  own  bent  and  interest.  The 
result  of  this  is  the  antithesis  of  scientific. 

The  bias  that  has  most  seriously  and  most  constantly 
perverted  thought  about  life  is  not  one  of  those  which 
Spencer  specifically  enumerates.  It  is  bias  in  favor  of 
the  thinker's  adopted  life-policy.  Life  itself  is  guided 
by  thoughts  about  life.  We  depend,  not  only  for  guid- 
ance, but  also  for  motive  and  power,  upon  a  few  con- 
cepts and  valuations.  These  are  our  most  indispensable 
practical  possessions.  Moreover,  the  serious  and  right- 
minded  person  prizes  his  world-view  not  alone  for  the 
sake  of  the  guidance,  motive,  and  sense  of  worth  which 
it  gives  to  his  own  life;  he  prizes  it  also  as  being  equally 
important  to  society. 

A  man  can  more  easily  see  any  other  ideas  called  in 
question  than  those  which  compose  his  world-view  or 
life-policy.  As  to  whether  light  is  a  substance  or  a  mode 
of  motion,  he  has  no  preference  to  outweigh  his  desire 
to  know  the  truth.  He  might  even  bear  to  find  that  his 
political  party  was  in  the  wrong  and  its  traditional  oppo- 
nent in  the  right,  or  that  his  section  or  country  had  been 
guilty  of  bigotry  and  misguided  zeal.  But  he  clings  to 
his  world-view.  It  is  the  foundation  upon  which  his  life 
and  being  are  built.  His  eyes  cannot  see  nor  his  mind 
appraise  facts  that  call  it  in  question,  unless  indeed  he 
has  an  honesty  and  courage  that  outride  any  tempest  of 
doubt  and  despair. 

But  although  all  serious-minded  men  may  equally 
cherish  the  different  opinions  that  form  the  foundations 
of  their  life-policies,  yet  not  all  have  been  equally  right 
in  these  opinions.  Men  can  live  and  even  live  nobly  by 


38  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

a  false  theory  and  may  be  willing  nobly  to  die  for  it. 
A  theory  that  is  incongruous  with  facts  is  a  perilous 
basis  on  which  to  found  our  valuations  and  our  purposes 
— a  foundation  likely  at  any  moment  to  be  destroyed  and 
to  leave  the  believer  bereft  and  engulfed. 

To  attack  either  the  general  causal  problems  or  the 
specific  ethical  problems  of  life  in  a  scientific  spirit 
threatens  the  world-view  of  most  persons.  Especially, 
to  attack  the  problems  of  the  causation  of  human  life  im- 
plies that  life  is  part  of  the  realm  of  cause  and  effect 
instead  of  belonging  to  a  separate  realm  of  "freedom" 
lying  outside  the  otherwise  universal  nexus  of  causation. 
And  the  usual  conceptions  of  freedom  and  responsibility 
must  be  called  in  question  and  perhaps  reformulated  or 
even  abandoned,  as  the  results  of  investigation  may  de- 
termine. 

At  this  point  is  illustrated  the  truth  that  the  intellectual 
movement  called  sociology  may  produce  significant  re- 
sults, not  only  in  so  far  as  it  brings  to  light  new  facts 
or  recondite  principles,  but  by  merely  looking  at  familiar 
facts  in  a  scientific  spirit,  for  we  have  winced  from  view- 
ing many  of  the  most  familiar  facts  of  life  in  that 
open-minded  way.  If  the  principles  of  causation  or  con- 
ditioning which  apply  to  individual  and  social  life  should 
prove  in  their  main  outline  to  be  rather  simple  and 
obvious  as  soon  as  we  are  willing  to  look  for  them,  yet 
to  learn  to  look  at  them  as  true  principles  of  causation 
and  to  adjust  our  system  of  thought  and  action  accord- 
ingly may  be  both  theoretically  and  practically  one  of  the 
most  momentous  of  all  results  of  the  scientific  spirit  and 
method. 

If  investigation  of  sociology's  general  problem,  the 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS  39 

problem  of  social  causation,  seems  to  threaten  destruction 
of  the  accepted  world-view,  there  already  is  promise  that 
investigation  of  the  special  problems  of  ethics  by  the 
sociological  method  will  prove  to  be  constructive  of  a 
modified  world-view  not  less  adapted  to  afford  guidance, 
motive,  and  worth  to  life,  having  the  incalculable  advan- 
tage over  the  old  world-view  of  being  impregnable  to  any 
attacks  by  incongruous  facts,  and  requiring  no  blinking 
of  the  clear  eyes  of  intellectual  honesty. 


CHAPTER  IV 
THE  NATURAL  SCIENCE  VIEW  OF  SOCIAL  LIFE 

The  assumption  of  causation  is  the  major  premise  of 
science.  To  science,  nature  is  an  all-inclusive  system; 
that  is,  whatever  we  can  observe  or  know  is  a  part  of 
the  order  of  nature,  each  pebble  or  blade  of  grass,  each 
wavelet  on  lake  or  sea,  the  path  of  every  snowflake  in 
January,  every  act  or  thought  of  man  is  an  item,  itself 
more  or  less  simple  or  complex,  in  the  course  of  nature. 
So  far  as  we  can  observe  each  item  in  the  course  of 
nature  appears  when,  and  where,  and  as  it  does,  because 
of  its  relations  to  the  other  items  in  the  course  of  nature. 
Whatever  may  be  true  of  ultimate  causation,  lying  behind 
all  phenomena,  of  it  science  as  such  can  say  nothing.  So 
deep  our  observation  does  not  penetrate.  From  such  ulti- 
mate causation  the  scientist  utterly  abstracts.  With  it, 
as  a  scientist,  he  has  nothing  to  do.  To  him,  as  a  scien- 
tist, the  word  causation  means  nothing  but  the  condition- 
ing of  phenomena  by  each  other. 

Men  have  believed  and  many  still  believe  that  our  own 
acts  and  thoughts  are  exceptions  to  the  rule  of  natural 
causation,  that  they  issue  de  novo  from  a  creative  spring 
in  every  human  breast,  that  they  are  called  by  the  fiat  of 
volition  out  of  nothing,  and  issue  into  the  world  without 
ancestry,  owing  their  existence  to  no  antecedent  facts. 
According  to  that  view  the  acts  and  thoughts  of  persons 

40 


THE  NATURAL  SCIENCE  VIEW  41 

are  not  a  part  of  the  order  of  nature,  as  conceived  by 
scientists  and  above  defined,  but  constitute  a  separate 
order  of  reality;  and  the  world  of  our  observation  is 
therefore  divided  into  two  parts,  the  realm  of  natural 
causation  and  the  realm  of  personal  activity. 

Savages  assign  most  events  to  personal  activity,  but 
with  the  progress  of  knowledge  the  realm  of  recognized 
causation  has  constantly  expanded.  The  savages,  know- 
ing nothing  of  gravitation,  the  movements  of  the  earth, 
and  other  essential  facts  of  nature,  think  that  the  volition 
of  unseen  persons  makes  the  river  flow,  the  wind  blow, 
the  sun  rise  and  set,  and  the  changing  seasons  come  and 
go.  If  one  dies  from  a  club  blow  on  the  head,  they  say 
he  who  dealt  the  blow  is  the  killer.  If  another  dies  of 
unseen  and  undreamed-of  microbes,  they  say  an  unseen 
person  is  the  killer.1  Only  simple  and  obvious  causal 
sequences  are  recognized  by  such  savages  as  natural;  all 
other  events  the  causation  of  which  is  inscrutable  to  crude 
observation  are  regarded  as  "supernatural."  If  men  at 
this  stage  of  mental  advancement  have  seen  one  of  their 
number  do  anything  that  exceeded  the  deeds  of  his  com- 
panions, they  have  been  wont  to  say  that  the  man  has  done 
it  only  in  part,  and  has  been  aided  by  an  unseen  helper. 
The  blacksmith  who  could  do  with  hard  iron  what  other 
men  could  not  was  long  supposed  to  be  in  league  with  a 
spirit.  It  has  seemed  to  man  that  he  was  at  every  turn 
in  contact  with  unseen  personalities. 

As  extending  knowledge  has  pushed  back  the  frontier 
of  the  unexplained,  the  area  of  the  supernatural,  in  that 
ancient  sense,  has  been  diminished  until  now  all  material 

*Even  to-day  death,  except  in  old  age,  is  very  commonly  re- 
garded as  a  Divine  taking  off. 


$2  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

events  are,  by  most  educated  people,  regarded  as  "natu- 
ral," in  the  sense  of  being  caused  by  antecedent  items  in 
the  course  of  nature.  Yet  the  old  dualism  between  that 
which  is  caused  and  that  which  is  done  is  so  far  main- 
tained in  thought  that  the  activities  of  men  are  still  gen- 
erally regarded  as  external  to  the  course  of  nature — to 
the  domain  of  the  mutual  causation  of  phenomena.  Thus 
it  is  that  people  commonly  restrict  the  term  "natural 
sciences"  to  those  sciences  which  deal  with  material 
phenomena.  But  according  to  the  view  here  proposed, 
sociology  should  be  a  natural  science;  and  man  should 
see  himself  as  standing  in  the  midst  of  the  order  of 
nature,  his  own  life  a  part  of  nature's  process,  caused  and 
causing. 

There  need  no  longer  be  any  dualism  between  things 
caused  and  things  done;  all  things  observed  by  man, 
including  his  own  thoughts  and  acts,  are  caused,  in  the 
sense  that  they  appear  to  issue  out  of  their  interrelation- 
ship with  the  conditioning  facts  of  nature.  And  it  is 
possible  to  believe  that  all  things  observed  by  man  are 
also  done,  in  the  sense  that  they  all  are  manifestations  of 
all-pervading  power  or  powers  from  whose  continuous 
operation  all  phenomena  proceed. 

There  is  no  science,  in  the  complete  sense  of  that  word, 
without  explanation;  and  there  is  no  explanation  except 
causal  explanation.  But  causal  explanation  does  not 
mean  ultimate  metaphysical  explanation,  which  to  man  is 
inaccessible;  it  means  tracing  the  relation  of  the  phe- 
nomena to  be  explained  to  the  phenomena  by  which  they 
were  conditioned.  If  sociology  is  to  be,  in  any  complete 
sense,  a  science,  it  must  be  a  "natural"  science;  that  is, 
it  must  explain  the  character  and  prevalence  of  social 


THE  NATURAL  SCIENCE  VIEW          43 

activities  by  referring  them  to  their  causal  conditions. 

Wundt  expresses  the  truth  thus :  "The  method  of  the 
psychological  sciences  (Geisteswissenschaften),  as  well 
as  that  of  the  natural  sciences,  should  of  course  be 
empirical  in  the  sense  that  it  sets  out  to  ascertain,  in  the 
first  place,  the  facts  of  experience,  and  in  the  second 
place,  their  relation  with  each  other,  the  latter  of  which 
should  satisfy  our  need  of  logical  explanation  without 
anything  being  added  to  the  facts,  a  proceeding  which 
can  find  in  this  need  (of  logical  explanation)  no  sufficient 
justification."2 

And  Ratzenhofer  says :  "Whether  sociology  can  take 
its  place  as  science  depends  upon  its  being  brought  within 
the  bounds  of  the  Natural  Unity,  which  can  be  done  only 
in  case  'all  phenomena  are  referred  to  the  unchangeable 
characteristics  of  a  permanent  Substance/  and  effort  is 
made  to  end  the  antithesis  between  the  realm  of  Nature 
and  the  realm  of  the  Soul."  8 

The  scientist  seeks  to  know  those  conditions  without  the 
concomitance  or  preexistence  of  which  phenomena  of  the 
kind  he  studies  do  not  appear,  and  by  the  modification  of 
which  phenomena  of  the  kind  he  studies  are  correspond- 
ingly modified. 

The  word  "sociology"  celebrates  the  thoroughgoing 
adoption  of  the  scientific  method  in  the  study  of  human 
life.  We  cannot  wholly  explain  any  given  individual 
life ;  for  to  do  so  would  require  us  to  distinguish  all  the 
causal  conditions  affecting  it  by  an  analysis  not  only 
qualitative  but  quantitative.  But  we  can  recognize 

"Wilhelm  Wundt,  Methodenlehre,  Zwtite  Abtheilung,  54,  Second 
Edition,  Stuttgart,  1895. 
'American  Journal  of  Sociology,  xi.  26. 


44  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

qualitatively  many  kinds  of  causes  that  affect  many  lives, 
and  can  compare  the  variations  of  a  given  cause  with  the 
variations  of  its  characteristic  effect  in  many  lives  so  as 
to  arrive  at  an  approximate  estimate  of  its  importance 
to  the  general  weal.  Human  experience  is  not  an  excep- 
tion to  the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  but  simply  the  most 
intricate  exhibition  of  it. 

It  is  useless  and  self -contradictory  for  a  theologian  to 
argue  that  conscious  acts  and  material  things  cannot 
cause  each  other  because  of  being  so  different  in  kind. 
If  that  were  true,  how  could  he  hold  that  the  conscious 
act  of  a  Creator  caused  the  material  universe?  To  deny 
the  mutual  causation  of  conscious  acts  and  material 
things  is  to  assume  an  ultimate  dualism. 

However,  we  are  not  concerned  with  creation  or  with 
ultimate  causation  or  metaphysical  monism  or  pluralism 
but  only  with  the  fact  that  as  a  matter  of  observation 
conscious  acts  and  material  things  do  cause  each  other 
in  the  only  sense  in  which  the  word  cause  is  used  by 
science;  and  as  to  whether  they  do  cause  each  other,  in 
this  sense,  observation  is  the  sole  witness. 

The  clock  strikes  the  half  hour.  I  am  reminded  of  my 
next  duty,  and  thereupon  suspend  my  writing  and  start 
for  my  lecture  room.  The  characteristic  function,  use, 
and  raison  d'etre  of  consciousness  results  from  these  two 
facts :  First,  that  consciousness  is  conditioned  by  material 
antecedents,  the  striking  of  clocks,  words,  signs,  houses, 
trees,  and  all  external  things  that  man  must  understand 
and  act  upon;  and  second,  that  consciousness  conditions 
results  in  the  material  world  by  which  signals  are  obeyed, 
trees  are  chopped  down,  houses  built,  associates  concili- 
ated, and  their  actions  organized,  and  all  else  is  done  that 


THE  NATURAL  SCIENCE  VIEW          45 

man  must  do  to  live.  Susceptibility  to  external  stimula- 
tion (which  is  to  say,  susceptibility  to  external  causation) 
and  reaction  (which  is  to  say,  the  causation  of  effects  in 
the  external  world)  are  the  functions  of  the  mechanism 
of  consciousness.  Indeed  all  biological  functioning  is 
reducible  to  one  formula:  Stimulation  and  response.  It 
appears  in  the  awakening  of  seeds  and  buds  in  spring,  in 
the  pulsations  of  the  amoeba  by  which  it  secures  its  food 
and  escapes  that  which  would  destroy  it.  With  increas- 
ing differentiation  and  complexity  nature  builds  into 
higher  and  higher  organisms  greater  numbers  of  struc- 
tures each  susceptible  to  its  appropriate  stimulus  and 
reacting  with  its  appropriate  response.  Thus,  we  swal- 
low and  wink,  and  breathe,  the  heart  beats,  the  glands 
secrete,  the  instincts  are  excited  and  prompt  us  to  action. 

In  the  brains  of  the  highest  animals,  including  man, 
minuteness  and  intricacy  go  to  lengths  which  it  is  as  hard 
to  believe  and  understand  as  it  once  was  for  men  to 
believe  in  the  rotation  and  revolution  of  the  earth  and 
the  distances^  that  separate  us  from  the  stars.  Space,  so 
to  speak,  extends  inward  to  microscopic  minuteness  as 
far  as  it  extends  outward  to  telescopic  vastness.4 

So  far  as  we  know,  animal  life  blossoms  into  indi- 
vidual consciousness  only  after  the  development  of 
rather  highly  organized  nervous  systems.  It  is  only 
when  consciousness  accompanies  the  issuance  of  action 
out  of  apparently  possible  alternatives  that  we  call  the 
action  "choice."  But  the  same  purpose  is  served  and 
often  the  same  appearance  is  presented  to  the  observer 

4  Recall  not  only  the  functioning  of  the  brain  but  also  the  facts 
of  heredity,  by  which  all  the  organs  of  the  body,  bearing  the  par- 
ticular traits  of  ancestors,  result  from  determiners  present  in  two 
germ  cells,  that  from  the  male  ancestor  being  microscopic  in  size. 


46  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

by  the  issuance  of  responses  out  of  alternative  stimula- 
tions on  the  part  of  animals  without  developed  brains  or 
apparent  consciousness.  Even  the  decapitated  frog,  after 
failing  with  the  first  response,  will  "pause  as  if  for  de- 
liberation," and  then  another  ganglion  in  his  spinal  cord 
will  function  in  what  appears  to  be  a  maturer  decision. 
And  the  acts  of  man  himself  are  not  always  accompanied 
by  consciousness;  indeed  a  great  proportion  of  his 
habitual  conduct  is  purely  automatic,  including  deter- 
mination between  alternative  courses.  It  seems  to  be 
primarily  when  there  is  friction  or  a  hitch  in  the  process 
that  the  choice  between  alternatives  is  accompanied  by 
consciousness.  Apparently  consciousness  helps  us  over 
the  hitch. 

Developed  brains  retain  the  tendency  to  repeat  past 
responses.  Such  brains  have  a  mass  of  cells  unspe- 
cialized  until  they  get  special  tendencies  and  connections 
as  results  of  past  functioning.  These  special  tendencies 
to  repeat  former  responses  and  to  set  up  former  connec- 
tions are  the  physical  aspect  of  what  we  call  memory  and 
habit.  As  a  result  of  these  acquired  tendencies  to  the 
renewal  of  former  activity  our  actions  result  not  only 
from  existing  external  stimuli,  but  also  in  part  from  the 
inwardly  revived  stimulations  of  the  past.  Present  inci- 
tations  and  the  renewal  of  past  stimulations  unite,  when 
congruous,  to  establish  a  tension  toward  the  correspond- 
ing response.  And  when  contrasting  stimulations, 
awakening  opposing  tensions,  arrive  simultaneously, 
either  directly  out  of  the  present  or  indirectly  out  of  the 
past,  then  there  necessarily  results  either  suspense  and 
inaction  or  "choice." 


THE  NATURAL  SCIENCE  VIEW  47 

There  are  some  who  argue  that  free  action  differs  from 
caused  action  in  this,  that  free  action  reaches  toward  the 
future  instead  of  being  determined  by  the  past.  They 
say  that  the  act  of  brushing  away  a  fly  from  my  face  is 
caused  by  a  tickling  sensation,  and  may  be  as  automatic 
as  the  act  by  which  the  frog  with  brain  severed  from 
the  spinal  cord  brushes  away  an  irritant,  but  that  if  I 
drive  away  a  fly  that  has  not  yet  alighted  on  my  face  it 
is  a  free  act  performed  in  anticipation  of  a  tickling  sen- 
sation that  has  not  yet  been  felt.5  This  is  an  error.  The 
act  is  caused  by  the  past  in  the  latter  case  as  truly  as  in 
the  former.  The  fly  that  approaches  my  face  would  not 
be  driven  off  in  order  to  avoid*  a  tickling  sensation  if 
no  such  sensation  had  ever  been  felt.  Past  ticklings  have 
left  an  effect  upon  my  brain.  The  approaching  fly 
awakens  memories  of  these  past  ticklings  and  the  mental 
state  thus  produced  causes  the  movement  by  which  I 
drive  away  the  approaching  fly.  Every  psychic  state  that 
issues  in  action  is  caused  by  past  evolution  of  our  struc- 
ture and  by  past  or  present  experiences  or  more  fre- 
quently by  both  past  and  present  experiences.  Hopes 
and  fears  are  caused  by  the  past  as  truly  as  memories. 
Every  mental  state  that  issues  in  action  is  caused  by  past 
and  present  facts,  not  by  facts  that  are  yet  to  be. 
Thoughts  of  the  future  exist  only  in  the  present,  and  as 
results  of  the  past.  Consciousness  is  the  burning  point 
where  our  past  becomes  our  future.  No  atom  of  all  its 
light  and  heat  and  power  is  derived  from  the  future. 

"This  figure  of  the  fly  is  employed  by  an  advocate  of  the  view 
criticized. 

'When  the  act  has  no  conscious  purpose  but  is  purely  instinctive 
or  reflex  it  is  a  result,  not  merely  of  the  past  experience  of  the 
individual,  but  of  the  past  evolution  of  the  species. 


48  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

All  my  present  fears  and  purposes  would  be  as  they  are 
if  by  a  divine  fiat  the  next  moment  were  to  plunge  the 
universe  into  blank  annihilation. 

Those  who  believe  that  thoughts  and  actions  issue 
uncaused  out  of  the  human  will  are  forced  by  the  obvious 
facts  and  practical  necessities  of  life  at  the  same  time  to 
act  upon  the  opposite  view.  The  man  who  hurries  to 
bring  important  news  believes  that  it  will  produce  an 
effect  upon  the  thoughts  and  acts  of  those  who  receive  it 
as  truly  as  the  man  who  pours  a  reagent  into  a  bottle 
believes  that  the  reagent  will  produce  an  effect.  The  man 
who  places  signals  along  a  railroad  track  believes  that 
they  will  produce  effects  in  the  thoughts  and  acts  of 
engineers  as  truly  as  those  who  place  cogs  and  cams  in  a 
machine  believe  that  they  will  produce  effects  in  the 
operation  of  the  mechanism.  Those  who  preach  and 
those  who  advertise  believe  that  they  will  produce  effects 
in  the  thoughts  and  desires  and  deeds  of  other  men.  All 
"social  control"  and  all  attempts  to  make  "a  better 
world"  of  human  conduct  and  experience  are  based  upon 
the  fact,  and  the  practical  recognition  of  the  fact,  that 
the  thoughts  and  words  and  acts  of  men  are  included  in 
the  realm  of  orderly  causation. 

We  reveal  our  practical  acceptance  of  the  fact  of  the 
causation  of  psychic  phenomena  in  our  common  speech: 
We  say,  "If  I  had  known,  if  I  had  seen,  if  I  had  heard 
— I  should  have  done,"  and  what  we  see  and  know  is 
caused  by  that  which  arrives  by  eye  and  ear  and  other 
senses.  We  see  and  hear  only  what  comes  within  the 
range  of  our  vision  and  our  hearing.  We  are  dependent 
for  the  character  and  the  fact  of  our  ideas,  sentiments 


THE  NATURAL  SCIENCE  VIEW          49 

and  deeds  upon  the  environment  that  affects  us.  Helen 
Keller,  with  all  her  gifts,  declared  that  she  "had  no  soul" 
till  she  was  seven  years  old,  when  external  causes  began 
to  play  an  increasing  part  in  her  life.  The  wild  bar- 
barians who  roamed  the  forests  of  northern  Europe  two 
thousand  years  ago  could  not  be  Christians,  for  they  had 
never  heard  of  Christ,  they  could  not  live  the  life  led  by 
their  cultured  descendants  to-day  although,  if  anthropolo- 
gists are  right,  they  were  as  well  endowed  by  nature  as  the 
present  generation,  for  the  individual  is  not  free  so  to 
outstrip  the  society  into  which  he  is  born.  To  be  born 
and  reared  in  the  environment  afforded  by  an  inland 
village  in  China,  remote  from  all  the  ideas  of  the  Occi- 
dent, would  necessarily  result  in  a  widely  different 
course  of  life  from  that  which  would  result  from  birth 
and  rearing  in  Paris  or  London,  though  all  other  condi- 
tions of  individual  possibility  were  the  same.  Environ- 
ment and  history  make  one  division  of  the  western  Slavs 
Catholic  and  another  Protestant.  The  child  of  a 
Harvard  professor  and  of  "Blinky  Morgan"  in  the 
criminal  milieu  of  the  slums,  are  affected  by  different, 
but  equally  potent,  causes.  A  single  word  of  another 
"makes  one  angry."  The  touch  of  a  single  noble  life 
may  result  in  conversion.  Manifestation  of  the  fiercest 
of  the  passions  is  subject  to  variations  due  to  local  causes 
which  are  as  unmistakable  as  the  variation  in  the  wheat 
crop  on  different  soils.  "With  quite  as  much  certainty  as 
the  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer  calculates  the  average  in- 
come of  his  budget  a  few  months  in  advance,  can  the 
statistician  predict  the  number  of  illegitimate  births  which 
will  occur  for  years  to  come,"  and  that  in  one  county  of 


50  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

Great  Britain  and  Ireland  they  will  be  twice  as  many  as  in 
another,  and  ten  times  as  many  as  in  another.7 

But  environment  is  only  one  factor.  Heredity  sets 
the  limits  within  which  psychic  responses  are  possible, 
for  activities  of  consciousness  are  responses  to  stimula- 
tion by  an  inherited  mechanism.  Heredity  denies  certain 
careers  but  leaves  others  open  and  accessible.  The  course 
of  life  is  affected  not  only  by  the  inherited  character  of 
the  brain,  but  also  by  the  degree  of  inborn  strength  and 
vitality,  and  by  the  character  of  every  important  organ 
of  the  body.  To  have  been  born  with  an  inactive  thyroid 
gland  would  have  made  Napoleon  a  loafer. 

Moreover,  early  responses  to  environment  modify  the 
psychic  mechanism  and  add  to  its  strictly  inborn  possi- 
bilities and  limitations.  Of  this  fact  the  fortunately 
reared  take  advantage  in  learning  habits  and  skills,  and 
in  all  education.  To  impair  or  derange  the  psychophysi- 
cal  mechanism  diverts  the  course  of  consciousness.  A 
blow  on  the  head,  so  far  as  we  can  observe,  interrupts 
or  terminates  the  conscious  processes.  A  cup  of  tea  or  a 
glass  of  whisky  alters  their  character.  A  toxin  from 
disease  or  a  drug  causes  raving  and  hallucinations. 
Health  and  sickness  of  the  body  condition  our  thoughts 
and  deeds,  both  obviously  and  also  in  subtler  and  less 

*  To  a  thousand  births  the  number  of  illegitimate  births  in  eleven 
successive  years  in  two  English  counties  was  as  follows: 
Shropshire     76,  80,  82,  79,  74,  85,  91,  82,  81,  80,  82 
Surrey  37,  38,  42,  38,  39,  41,  44,  41,  41,  40,  43 

During  the  same  eleven  years  the  number  of  illegitimate  births 
per  thousand  births  in  all  Ireland  varied  between  23  and  29  and 
in  County  Mayo  averaged  between  5  and  6.  For  the  purposes  of 
this  argument  it  matters  not  whether  these  local  variations  are  due 
to  the  heredity  of  the  people  or  to  the  influence  of  the  Catholic 
Church  and  other  environmental  causes.  The  quotation  and  statis- 
tics are  from  Leffingwell:  Illegitimacy,  8,  15,  28. 


THE  NATURAL  SCIENCE  VIEW  51 

obvious  ways.  Pulmonary  consumption  makes  men 
sweet-tempered  and  hopeful,  diabetes  makes  them 
morose.  Even  the  weather  affects  our  thoughts  and  feel- 
ings as  truly  as  drugs  or  stimulants.  There  are  summer 
crimes  and  winter  crimes,  and  even  for  so  intimately 
personal  an  act  as  suicide  the  statistics  of  prevalence 
show  a  regular  seasonal  rise  and  fall.8 

Sociology,  including  sociological  ethics,  if  it  is  to  adopt 
the  scientific  method,  if  it  is  to  proceed,  not  by  a  priori 
speculation  but  by  the  investigation  of  facts,  is  forced 
to  be  a  "natural"  science,  a  science,  that  is  to  say,  that 
has  for  its  business  the  explanation  of  a  special  class  of 
facts  that  constitute  its  problems,  by  reference  to  other 
facts  as  their  causes  or  conditions.  The  dualism  between 
what  is  caused  and  what  is  done  has  vanished,  or  is  van- 
ishing as  fast  and  as  far  as  knowledge  advances.  Prac- 
tical endeavor  has  always  been  forced  to  deny  that  dual- 
ism, and  even  theory,  cannot  continue  to  affirm  it  without 
self-contradiction  and  blindness. 

"'Nothing  apparently  is  more  clearly  proved  than  that  the 
tendency  to  suicide  in  every  country  in  Europe  regularly  increases 
from  the  end  of  winter  until  July,  and  then  slowly  declines.  .  .  . 
Without  exception,  that  period  of  the  year  when  the  suicidal  im- 
pulse is  least  felt  occurs  during  winter  when  cold,  hunger,  and 
destitution  are  generally  most  severely  felt."  Leffingwell,  The 
Influence  of  the  Seasons  Upon  Conduct,  92,  93. 


CHAPTER  V 
THE  NATURE  OF  WILL 

Notwithstanding  the  seasonal  fluctuation  in  statistics 
of  suicide,  mentioned  at  the  close  of  the  last  chapter,  hot 
weather  does  not  by  itself  cause  suicide  in  Europe,  nor 
does  the  coming  of  the  opium  crop  by  itself  cause  waves 
of  suicide  in  China,  for  no  one  thing  alone  causes  a 
psychic  act,  not  even  disease  or  inborn  genius  or  the 
appeal  of  an  evangelist  or  the  cry  of  fire  or  the  sight  of 
a  lion  in  the  path.  The  causation  is  always  complex  and 
involves  various  elements  included  in  the  inborn  and 
acquired  capacity  for  response  and  in  the  past  and  pres- 
ent environments.  It  is  because  no  one  thing  is  the 
adequate  explanation  of  a  psychic  act  that  it  is  possible 
to  think  that  it  is  uncaused.  But  a  result  is  no  less  truly 
caused  because  its  causation  is  so  complex.  Not  human 
conduct  alone,  but  all  the  phenomena  of  life,  even  vege- 
table life,  depend  upon  combinations  of  conditions  that 
are  highly  complex,  and  psychic  phenomena  are  the 
highest  of  the  phenomena  of  life  and  their  causation  is 
the  most  complex  and  therefore  the  most  obscure  of  all. 
One  half  of  that  which  we  call  our  sense  of  freedom  is 
our  inability  to  discern  the  causes  out  of  which  our 
actions  issue. 

If  we  confine  ourselves  to  what  observation  reports, 
refraining  alike  from  materialism  and  from  idealism  and 

5* 


THE  NATURE  OF  WILL  53 

from  every  mere  metaphysical  assumption,  then  we  say 
that  the  phenomenon  which  in  daily  life  we  call  an  idea 
or  a  thought  is  closely  related  to  what  the  physiologist 
and  psychologist  call  a  neurosis,  so  that  a  blow  on  the 
head  that  stops  the  neural  functioning  interrupts  the 
thought.1  Moreover,  what  we  call  a  voluntary  act  is 
always  the  expression  of  an  intention  or  idea  or  thought. 
Certain  psychologists  quoted  below  hold  that  thoughts 
go  over  into  action  directly,  "that  consciousness  is  in  its 
very  nature  impulsive,"  2  that  thoughts  are  a  concsious 
aspect  of  a  motor  process.  It  may  be  true,  on  the  other 
hand,  that  thoughts  are  afferent  rather  than  efferent, 
that  they  are  the  income  that  prompts  the  motor  outgo, 
and  that  thoughts  are  motor  only  by  virtue  of  waking 
up  and  calling  into  play  some  instinct  or  habit,  some 
waiting  motor  apparatus.  Important  as  this  distinction 
is  in  some  connections,  it  does  not  lessen  the  causal 
efficiency  of  ideas,  but  only  reveals  the  complexity  of  the 
apparatus  of  conscious  action,  and  the  quotations  may 
be  read  in  the  light  of  this  comment.  "Volition  consists 
in  the  self-realization  of  an  idea."  3  "The  popular  notion 
that  mere  consciousness,4  as  such,  is  not  essentially  a  fore- 
runner of  activity,  that  the  latter  must  result  from  some 
superadded  will  force,  is  a  very  natural  inference  from 
those  special  cases  in  which  we  think  of  an  act  for  an 
indefinite  length  of  time  without  the  action's  taking  place. 

*In  ordinary  life  we  are  unaware  of  our  neuroses  and  of  that 
which  the  Freudians  call  the  "unconscious."  When  we  speak  of  our 
ideas,  our  feelings,  and  our  acts,  we  practice  a  kind  of  metonomy, 
naming  a  complex  total  by  that  element  in  the  total  which  at  the 
time  concerns  us,  namely,  the  part  of  the  process  which  is  conscious. 

'James,  Psychology,  ii.  526. 

'F.  H.  Bradley,  Mind,  January,  1902,  2,  note. 

4  "Consciousness"  simply  means  ideas  and  feelings. 


54  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

These,  however,  are  cases  of  inhibition  by  antagonistic 
thoughts.  When  the  blocking  is  released  we  feel  as  if 
an  inward  spring  were  let  loose,  and  this  is  the  additional 
impulse  or  fiat  upon  which  the  act  effectively  succeeds."  5 
"It  may  be  remarked  in  passing  that  the  inhibition  of  a 
movement  no  more  involves  an  express  effort  or  com- 
mand than  its  execution  does.  Just  as  the  bare  presence 
of  one  idea  prompts  a  movement  so  the  bare  presence  of 
another  idea  will  prevent  its  taking  place."  e  An  idea  of 
an  action  that  is  unimpeded  by  any  contradictory  idea  is 
for  observation  the  last  step  in  the  causation  of  that 
action.  Some  people  do  not  dare  to  go  on  high  towers, 
walls,  or  precipices,  because  the  very  horror  of  the 
thought  of  falling  makes  that  thought  so  absorb  attention 
as  to  drive  out  inhibiting  ideas  to  such  an  extent  that 
they  feel  that  the  dreadful  idea  is  in  danger  of  getting 
complete  possession  of  their  attention,  and  that,  they 
realize,  would  cause  the  act. 

Ideas  of  action  that  are  accompanied  by  judgments  of 
preference  and  approval  hold  our  interest  and  attention 
more  strongly  on  account  of  those  reen forcing  mental 
states.  More  often  than  not  the  propulsion  of  ideas 
thus  reenforced  triumphs  over  inhibiting  ideas  incon- 
gruous with  our  preference  and  approval.  We  expect 
our  approved  ideas  to  go  over  into  action  unless  we  are 
aware  of  some  conflicting  idea.  We  recognize  the  carry- 
ing of  approved  ideas  into  execution  as  the  test  of  our 
practical  efficiency.  To  admit  that  an  idea  of  action  is 
definitely  preferred  and  its  execution  anticipated  so  that 
its  execution  or  non-execution  will  be  a  test  of  our  prac- 

"  James,  op.  c\t.t  ii.  526. 
'Ibid.,  ii.  527. 


THE  NATURE  OF  WILL  55 

tical  efficiency  is  to  will  the  act.  The  functioning  of  ap- 
proved ideas  in  action  in  spite  of  other  promptings,  which 
on  the  whole  do  not  have  the  sanction  of  practical  judg- 
ment, is  what  we  call  the  exercise  of  our  will.  "The  dif- 
ference between  a  voluntary  and  involuntary  exertion  lies 
in  the  tetter's  being  conditioned  only  by  the  immediate 
sense  impressions,  while  the  former  is  conditioned  by 
stored  sense  impressions  and  the  conceptions  drawn  from 
them/'  7  that  is,  by  judgments  of  preference  and  approv- 
al resulting  from  past  experience  and  reflection.  "When 
the  exertion  is  at  once  determined  by  the  immediate  sense 
impression  we  do  not  speak  of  will,  but  of  reflex  action, 
habit,  instinct,  etc.  Will,  when  we  analyze  it,  does  not 
appear  as  the  first  cause  in  a  routine  of  perception,  but 
merely  as  a  secondary  cause,  or  intermediate  link  in  the 
chain.  The  '  freedom  of  will'  lies  in  the  fact  that  exer- 
tion is  conditioned  by  our  own  individuality,  that  the 
routine  of  mental  processes  which  intervenes  between 
sense  impression  and  exertion  is  perceived  physically 
neither  by  us  nor  by  any  one  else,  and  psychically  by  us 
alone."  8 

As  one  part  of  our  "sense  of  freedom"  is  our  unaware- 
ness  of  the  subtle  psychophysical  causation  behind  our 
deeds,  so  the  second  part  of  it  is  the  fact  that  while  we 
can  be  simultaneously  conscious  of  opposing  ideas,  either 
of  which  might  issue  in  action,  normally  those  ideas  do 
issue  in  action  which  we  definitely  prefer.  Negatively, 
our  sense  of  freedom  is  the  absence  or  incompleteness  of 
realization  of  the  causal  process  that  leads  to  our  act; 
positively,  it  is  consciousness  of  our  own  preference  and 

fK.  Pearson,  Grammar  of  Science  (3d  ed.),  i.  124. 
'  Ibid. 


56  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

practical  approval  for  the  chosen  act  accompanied  by 
the  expectation  that  the  approved  act  will  follow.  As 
a  matter  of  fact,  our  approval  and  adoption  of  the 
anticipated  act  is  itself  caused  and  is  one  item  in  the 
complete  causation  of  the  act. 

Our  sense  of  "exerting  our  will"  is  strongest  when 
motivation  by  established  judgments  is  opposed  to  that 
of  ideas  which  arouse  some  emotionally  urgent  habit  or 
instinct.  Instinctive  impulse  excited  by  a  present  object 
affords  the  more  primitive  type  of  motivation,  but  judg- 
ments based  on  past  experience  have  power  to  summon 
other  instincts  or  organic  tendencies  to  compete  with 
the  instinct  that  is  excited  by  the  present  object. 

"The  term  will  is  simply  a  convenient  appellation  for 
the  whole  range  of  mental  life  viewed  from  the  stand- 
point of  its  activity  and  control  over  movement." 
"There  is  no  specific  mental  element  to  be  called  will, 
because  all  states  of  consciousness  are  in  their  entirety 
the  will."  °  What  I  have  spoken  of  as  "the  idea  that 
moves  us  to  action"  and  "that  functions  in  our  deed" 
should  be  described  not  merely  as  one  idea,  one  single 
element  in  consciousness,  but  rather  as  the  net  total  of 
consciousness  at  the  time  of  beginning  to  act,  including 
the  thoughts  of  the  possible  actions  considered,  and  all 
the  thoughts,  pro  and  con,  about  them  and  their  conse- 
quences, and  also  the  feelings  by  which  those  thoughts 
are  accompanied,  and  which  emphasize  in  consciousness 
the  presence  and  the  kind  of  each  urgent  thought.  More- 
over, the  action  that  starts  is  influenced  even  by  some 
elements  that  are  not  in  consciousness,  for  the  thoughts 

•James  Rowland  Angel,  Psychology,  437.    New  York,  1908. 


THE  NATURE  OF  WILL  57 

that  have  recently  been  in  mind  leave  for  a  time  a  set 
in  the  organism  which  gives  a  bent  to  action,  after  the 
memory  of  these  thoughts  has  ceased  to  be  acute  enough 
to  keep  a  place  in  consciousness  in  competition  with  the 
clamorous  instigations  of  the  moment.10  From  the  point 
of  view  of  biological  function  and  moral  conduct,  the 
whole  neural  mechanism  and  also  the  consciousness  issu- 
ing from  it,  in  all  its  phases,  exist  and  were  evolved  to 
determine  action.  This  is  true  equally  of  the  simplest 
instincts  and  of  those  effects  of  past  experiences  and 
reflective  states  which  we  call  judgments  or  ideals.  What 
these  adopted  judgments  and  preferences  or  "ideals  shall 
be  for  any  one  of  us  depends  in  part  upon  the  sort  of 
tendencies  we  have  inherited  and  in  part  upon  the  forces 
of  our  social  and  physical  environment."  n 

"When  will  triumphs  over  temptation,  what  checks 
our  impulses  is  the  mere  thinking  of  reasons  to  the  con- 
trary— it  is  their  bare  presence  to  the  mind  which  gives 
flie  veto,  and  makes  acts  otherwise  seductive  impossible 
to  perform."  12  "If  we  could  only  forget  our  scruples, 
our  doubts,  our  fears,  what  exultant  energy  we  should 
for  a  while  display !"  18  Willing  is  simply  the  presence 
of  an  idea  in  the  mind  in  the  absence  of  any  countervail- 
ing or  inhibiting  idea.  "With  the  presence  once  there  as 
a  fact,  of  the  motive  idea  the  psychology  of  volition 
properly  stops.  The  movements  which  ensue  are  exclu- 
sively physiological  phenomena,  following  according  to 

"May  I  ask  the  reader  to  compare  the  section  on  "The  Sub- 
conscious Set"  in  my  book,  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Sociology, 
298. 

"Angel,  op.  cit.,  437-  .. 

"James,  Psychology,  11.  560. 

u  Ibid. 


58  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

physiological  laws  upon  the  neural  events  to  which  the 
idea  corresponds."  14 

But  it  is  not  always  the  preferred  idea  that  realizes 
itself.  "To  will — that  is  to  approve — is  often  present 
with  us  but  how  to  do  we  find  not."  The  unthreatened 
dog  marches  head  up  to  his  meat,  but  the  trained  dog 
skulks  as  he  seizes  the  joint  from  the  kitchen  table,  the 
thought  of  escaping  a  dreaded  beating  half  realizes  itself 
in  cowering  and  flight  even  while  he  steals.  So  in  man, 
at  times,  acquired  scruples  only  half  restrain  him,  while 
the  unapproved  thought,  in  line  with  habit  or  inborn 
tendency,  grips  his  organism  and  controls  his  response. 
The  wayward  impulse  tends  to  make  us  "  forget  our 
scruples."  "Our  scruples"  are  ideas  that  were  not  in- 
born but  that  have  been  gained  by  experience  and 
instruction,  and  the  promptings  of  these  acquired  ideas 
often  oppose  the  instinctive  tendencies  which  are  aroused 
by  the  immediate  occasion. 

When  engrossing  ideas  suggested  by  the  occasion, 
actually  make  us  "forget  our  scruples,"  it  is  an  illustra- 
tion of  the  principle  that  thoughts  are  activities,  and  like 
other  activities  are  inhibited  by  incongruous  psychic 
states  or  prompted  and  impelled  by  congruous  ones. 
Since  ideas  prompt  thinking,  as  well  as  other  forms  of 
activity,  therefore  ideas  concerning  the  importance  of 
certain  thoughts  stimulate  the  neural  tensions  and  explo- 
sions out  of  which  those  important  thoughts  arise  into 
consciousness,  and  thus  ideas  that  we  believe  to  be  im- 
portant tend  to  force  themselves  into  attention  and 
wrestle  with  the  promptings  of  impulse  and  passion. 

"Ibid. 


THE  NATURE  OF  WILL  59 

And  even  if,  at  times,  the  passionate  thought  partly  or 
wholly  inhibits  the  ideal  thought  and  we  "forget  our- 
selves," as  soon  as  the  impulse  is  satisfied  and  silenced, 
the  important  thought  begins  again  to  function  and 
plague  us  with  remorse.  A  good  will  is  the  functioning 
of  an  organism  in  which  the  motivation  of  judgments 
and  intentions  that  have  grown  out  of  past  experience 
and  reflection  is  powerful  enough  to  regulate  impulses 
instigated  by  the  appeal  of  present  environment. 

Some  say  that  there  is  in  our  activity  both  an  element 
of  causation  and  one  of  freedom.  These  sometimes 
specify  that  we  are  free  within  limits  set  by  our  environ- 
ment; we  are  not  free  to  swim  where  there  is  no  water, 
nor  to  live  lives  utterly  incongruous  with  our  natural  or 
social  surroundings.  Or  they  say  we  are  free  within 
limits  set  by  our  heredity;  we  are  not  all  free  to  write 
like  Shakespeare,  nor  to  compose  like  Beethoven,  nor  to 
live  lives  for  which  our  capacities  and  traits  have  no 
adaptation.  But  when  we  see  in  one  synthetic  view  all 
that  observation  reveals  we  say:  One  factor  in  the 
causation  of  our  course  of  action  is  found  in  external 
conditions;  another  is  heredity;  and  a  third  proximate 
cause  in  habit,  judgment,  principle — the  stored  results  of 
our  past  experience  and  reflection.  The  activity  of  each 
hour  is  the  resultant  that  issues  from  the  meeting  of 
these  three:  hereditary  capacity,  the  effects  of  past 
activity  and  experience,  and  external  occasion.  We  may 
believe  in  another  inexplicable  uncaused  factor  that  comes 
down  upon  the  situation  and  turns  the  resultant  in  this 
direction  or  in  that.  But  observation  cannot  discover  it, 
nor  the  need  of  it  to  fill  out  the  explanation.  If  so,  then 
science  has  no  justification  for  holding  to  such  a  notion. 


60  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

What  then  does  the  word  freedom  mean  to  the  deter- 
minist?  It  means  power  to  achieve  ends  approved  by 
our  own  intelligence.  "Of  course,  if  we  should  ask  the 
psychologist  whether  this  unfree  and  that  free  action 
stand  in  different  relations  to  the  psychological  and 
physiological  laws,  he  would  answer  only  with  a  smile. 
If  the  perceptions,  associations,  feelings,  emotions,  and 
disposition  are  all  given,  the  action  must  necessarily  hap- 
pen as  it  does.  The  effect  is  absolutely  determined  by 
the  combination  of  causes;  only  the  effect  is  a  free  one, 
because  those  causes  lay  within  us."  15  Human  conduct 
is  of  two  types  which  by  degrees  merge  into  each  other. 
The  first  may  be  called  fractional  response,  or  peripheral 
control,  and  is  unfree;  the  second  may  be  called  total 
response,  or  central  control,  and  is  free. 

Fractional  response  takes  place  when  an  idea  directly 
occasioned  by  the  environment  is  the  immediate  cause  of 
an  action.  This  was  illustrated  when  the  absent-minded 
bacteriologist  drank  the  glass  of  water  in  which  he  had 
just  washed  his  grapes  to  remove  the  microbes.  The 
idea  occasioned  by  the  perception  of  the  water  standing 
there  prompted  the  habitual  action  and  he  drank.  If  he 
had  thought,  he  would  not  have  drunk;  but  one  fraction 
of  his  mental  apparatus  got  away  from  him  and  func- 
tioned without  the  awakening  of  the  rest.  He  acted  upon 
the  suggestion  as  automatically  as  the  jumping  jack  when 
the  string  is  pulled.  Similarly  fractional,  though  the 
fraction  of  personality  that  dominates  the  action  may  be 
less  minute  than  in  the  last  example,  is  the  action  of  every 
impulsive,  passionate  man  who  does  what  he  would  not 

» Miinsterberg,  Psychology  and  Life,  8.  Cf.  author's  Introduction 
to  the  Study  of  Sociology,  232  et  seq. 


THE  NATURE  OF  WILL  61 

have  done  "if  he  had  thought,"  and  who  has  afterward 
to  say,  "What  a  fool  I  was,"  whose  intentions  slumber 
while  instinctive  or  habitual  actions  go  into  execution 
at  the  prompting  of  external  suggestion.  It  is  of  such  a 
man  that  Spinoza  wrote,  "The  passionate  man  is  a  passive 
man."  One  fragment  of  his  nature  functions  while  the 
rest  of  his  being  is  as  if  it  were  not.  Such  a  man  is 
subject  to  external  or  peripheral  control  and  is  unfree. 

Total  response  (to  use  the  terms  that  syrfibolize  the 
psychological  hypothesis  involved)  is  an  action  which  is 
the  resultant  of  all  the  ideas  stored  in  memory  centers 
that  are  connected  by  association  paths  with  the  idea 
called  up  by  the  external  stimulus.  The  man  who,  in  the 
presence  of  the  external  occasion  or  interest,  prompting 
to  an  instinctive  or  habitual  act,  does  not  start  off  like  an 
automaton  straight  in  the  direction  of  that  simple  im- 
pulse, but  calls  to  mind  the  upshot  of  all  that  he  knows 
about  the  matter,  and  about  the  consequences  that  have 
followed  from  such  actions  in  the  past,  and  the  inten- 
tions previously  formed  that  may  be  inconsistent  with 
the  present  prompting,  and  who  does  not  move  in  the 
direction  of  the  first  stimulation  unless  it  has  the  consent 
of  his  nature,  enriched  by  its  past  experience  and  reflec- 
tion, exhibits  responses  which  are  not  fractional  but 
total.  The  control  under  which  he  acts  is  not  peripheral 
but  central.  And  such  a  man  is  free.  Such  total  response 
is  the  expression  of  his  "better  self."  One's  better  self 
is  his  whole,  unmutilated  self.  Any  being  is  free  whose 
actions  are  the  functioning  of  his  own  unobstructed  and 
unmutilated  organism.  "Freedom  of  will  means  to  him 
(the  psychologist)  absence  of  an  outer  force,  or  of 
pathological  disturbance  in  the  causation  of  our  actions. 


62  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

We  are  free,  as  our  actions  are  not  the  mere  outcome  of 
conditions  which  lie  outside  of  our  organism,  but  the 
product  of  our  own  motives  and  their  normal  connec- 
tions. All  our  experiences  and  thoughts,  our  hopes  and 
fears,  cooperate  in  our  consciousness  and  in  its  physi- 
ological substratum,  our  brain,  to  bring  about  the 
action."  16 

According  to  the  natural  science  view,  our  freedom, 
negatively  considered,  is  freedom  from  external  control, 
not  the  absence  of  external  factors  in  the  causation  of 
conduct  but  the  preponderance  of  internal  factors,  the 
power  to  resist  those  solicitations  of  the  passing  occasion 
which  are  inconsistent  with  our  own  established  judg- 
ments and  sentiments.  Positively  considered,  it  is  the 
power  to  execute  a  definite  policy  and  purpose.  Freedom 
is  not  liberty  to  act  uncaused,  not  freedom  from  oneself, 
but  it  is  the  power  of  a  developed  individuality  to  express 
itself  in  action  that  is  not  the  result  of  any  temporary 
external  condition,  but  is  the  result  of  his  own  whole  past 
evolution. 

Any  high  degree  and  quality  of  freedom  has  to  be 
developed  or  acquired.  Men  differ  in  the  degree  of  free- 
dom which  they  have  attained.  One  grows  more  and 
more  free  only  in  proportion  as  he  accumulates  a  store 
of  central  judgments  and  approved  sentiments  and  estab- 
lishes their  habitual  domination  over  the  promptings  of 
transitory  and  accidental  stimuli.  Man  is  free,  in  the 
high  and  human  meaning  of  that  term,  only  in  propor- 
tion as  his  acts  are  the  expression  of  the  rational  judg- 
ments and  appreciative  valuations  that  are  stored  in  his 
own  mind.  Freedom,  or  the  power  to  pursue  the  ends 

"  Miinsterberg,  op.  cit.t  7. 


THE  NATURE  OF  WILL  63 

approved  by  one's  own  intelligence,  exists  when  one's 
own  approvals  issue  by  natural  causation  in  correspond- 
ing conduct. 

The  individual  characterized  by  partial  response  and 
peripheral  control  is  free,  if  free  at  all,  only  in  a  poor 
and  fractional  sense,  for  he  cannot  carry  out  his  own 
good  intentions.  Each  adult  has  built  up  a  central  store 
of  ideas  and  judgments  which  are  his  own,  and  of  which, 
if  he  is  well  organized,  his  acts  are  the  fitting  expression. 
A  well  organized  mind  is  one  in  which  the  items  of 
knowledge  do  not  remain  in  scattered  fragments  or  un- 
sorted  heaps  but  are  analyzed  and  then  connected 
according  to  relations  that  are  congruous  with  the  laws 
of  nature  as  reflected  in  the  laws  of  thought,  and  that 
have  meaning  for  his  interests,  in  the  light  of  general 
concepts.  A  well  organized  will  is  the  overt  expression 
of  ideas  that  are  not  fragmentary  and  detached,  but  cor- 
related into  general  principles  of  conduct. 

As  men  are  born  with  differing  degrees  of  muscular 
strength  and  mental  correlation,  so  also  are  they  born 
with  differing  degrees  of  power  and  consistency  of  will. 
There  are  geniuses  of  will  as  well  as  geniuses  of  intellect 
and  of  sensibility.  Some,  therefore,  have  more  freedom 
than  others  ever  can  acquire.  Yet  all  of  us,  save  a  very 
small  per  cent  who  are  mentally  defective  or  diseased,  can 
be  so  educated  as  to  fit  into  some  normal  place  in  civilized 
society  and  can  develop  a  sufficient  degree  of  the  freedom 
of  rational  conduct  so  as  to  live  "steady"  lives.  Those 
who  cannot  require  guardianship  till  death. 

Freedom,  as  above  defined,  is  a  perfectly  clear  concept. 
It  is  definable  and  does  not,  like  causeless  freedom, 


64  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

become  indefensible  when  once  defined.17  On  the  con- 
trary, it  thoroughly  corresponds  to  the  facts  of  human 
experience.  It  is  the  real  freedom  and  no  illusion.  This 
definition  of  freedom,  which  is  clear  and  unescapable 
from  the  scientific  point  of  view,  claims  for  man  all  that 
the  staunchest  defender  of  causeless  freedom  is  able  to 
formulate  in  positive  terms.  The  positive  definition  of 
freedom  (as  distinguished  from  the  merely  negative  state- 
ment that  human  behavior  is  uncaused)  is  identical 
whether  given  by  the  determinist  or  by  the  voluntarist. 
Thus  Bergson  says:  "In  short,  we  are  free  when  our 
acts  spring  from  our  whole  personality  when  they  express 
it,  when  they  have  that  indefinable  resemblance  to  it 
which  one  sometimes  finds  between  the  artist  and  his 
work."  20  And  is  freedom  when  seen  as  the  causal  result- 
ant of  the  whole  past  evolution  of  a  rational  being  less 
worthy  and  dignified  and  valuable  than  freedom  would 
be  if  it  existed  according  to  that  old  illusive  notion  of 
freedom  which  has  been  clung  to  in  spite  of  all  evidence 
and  at  the  cost  of  discrediting  the  human  mind  and  of 
denying  that  for  us  the  words  truth  and  reality  have  any 
meaning? 

That  ancient  illusion  was  that  the  free  act  issues  ex 
nihilo  by  a  creative  fiat  of  the  individual  mind  and  by  a 
different  fiat  its  opposite  might  have  issued  just  as  well. 

""Any  positive  definition  of  freedom  will  ensure  the  victory  of 
determinism."  H.  Bergson,  Time  and  Free  Will,  220.  Translation 
of  T.  L.  Pogson,  London,  1910.  "Every  attempt  to  define  freedom 
will  open  the  way  to  determinism."  Ibid.,  230. 

"Ibid.,  172.  In  spite  of  his  admission  that  no  conception  of 
freedom,  that  includes  the  idea  of  causelessness,  can  be  defended, 
Bergson  is  at  present  the  most  prominent  champion  of  causeless 
freedom,  as  will  appear  in  later  references  to  that  writer. 


THE  NATURE  OF  WILL  65 

According  to  the  natural  science  view  the  free  act, 
instead  of  issuing  out  of  nothing,  is  the  culmination  of 
the  whole  process  of  evolution.  Up  from  the  ooze  the 
process  of  biological  evolution  has  mounted  through 
geologic  ages  until  there  was  achieved  the  immeasurably 
intricate  organism  of  man.  And  social  evolution,  like- 
wise, from  paleolithic  time  has  been  compounding  out  of 
human  experience  the  moral  sentiments,  the  counsels  of 
prudence,  the  arts  of  life,  the  languages  and  creeds,  that 
issue  in  the  words  and  deeds  of  men.  And  the  life  of 
the  individual  by  a  series  of  subtle  reactions  between  the 
products  of  these  two  evolutions  develops  preferences, 
policies,  ideals,  and  habits  which  in  the  well-born  and 
well-reared  constitute  a  regulated  system  of  potentiality. 
Thus,  each  free  act  is  the  culmination  of  biological  and 
social  and  individual  evolution.  It  does  not  issue  out  of 
nothing  and  it  could  not  have  been  its  own  opposite. 
Just  as  we  have  abandoned  the  crude  notion  that  God 
made  man  by  fashioning  him  of  earth  like  a  child  at 
play  and  then  breathing  on  him  to  give  him  life,  and 
have  adopted  a  far  diviner  idea  of  creation,  so  we  may 
now  adopt  a  less  inadequate  notion  of  the  free  act,  the 
act  that  carries  into  execution  the  approvals  of  intelli- 
gence, the  self-conscious  birth  of  man's  future  out  of 
his  own  past  and  the  past  of  the  universe. 

The  principle  was  noted  above  that  practical  judg- 
ments prompt  not  only  muscular  activity  but  also,  and 
primarily,  neural  activity,  including  the  neural  activity 
which  underlies  thought.  Consequently,  when  we  judge 
that  a  given  course  of  thought  leads  toward  a  painful 
conclusion,  that  course  of  thought  is  inhibited  just  as 
the  muscular  act  of  putting  the  hand  into  the  fire  or  of 


66  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

jumping  in  ice  cold  water  would  be.  And  when  we  judge 
that  a  given  course  of  thought  leads  toward  a  pleasurable 
conclusion,  that  is,  one  that  is  either  pleasurable  in  itself 
or  that  is  a  step  toward  other  pleasurable  experience, 
then  that  course  of  thought  is  prompted  as  truly  as  the 
taking  of  pleasant  food.  Our  only  salvation  from  a 
fool's  paradise  lies,  first,  in  objective  facts  that  are  what 
they  are,  in  spite  of  all  our  preferences  and  dreams,  and 
second,  in  that  the  whole  mechanism  of  consciousness, 
from  sensation  to  reason,  functions  under  the  stimula- 
tion of  facts.  Fortunately  we  have  by  instinct  and  pre- 
disposition a  veritable  hunger  for  facts.  But  desires  for 
courses  of  action  or  states  of  mind  incongruous  with  the 
facts  often  prompt  us  to  shun  them,  shut  our  eyes  to 
them,  select  these  for  attention  and  those  for  neglect.19 
And  when  we  begin  to  speculate  on  subjects  concerning 
which  objective  facts  knowable  by  man  are  few,  then 
we  build  up  systems  of  thought  that  suit  us,  and  to 
which  we  therefore  cling  tenaciously,  but  to  which  we 
are  entitled  by  no  sound  claim. 

Reasonable  opinions  are  as  truly  caused  as  unreason- 
able ones;  reasonable  opinions  are  the  product  of  heredi- 
tary capacity,  together  with  the  facts  which  are  furnished 
by  present  occasion  and  by  memory  or  by  adequate 
testimony.  But  since  we  have  often  strong  desires  be- 
sides the  desire  for  facts  and  truth,  the  opinions  of  men 
are  frequently  unreasonable.  Even  in  the  presence  of 
new  and  convincing  knowledge  they  prefer  cherished 
error,  they  fear  to  change  it,  and  so  it  lives  on.  It  is 
possible  that  the  reader  has  decided  that  he  will  not 

"  As  an  extreme  exhibition  of  our  power  to  believe  what  we  will 
in  spite  of  facts  witness  Christian  Science. 


THE  NATURE  OF  WILL  67 

believe  in  a  natural  science  view  of  social  life  and  indi- 
vidual volition — has  decided  in  the  only  sense  in  which 
man  ever  decides  that  he  will  or  will  not  do  anything — 
except  that  the  reader  may  not  admit  that  his  action  is 
to  be  caused  by  his  preference. 

Because  interest  is  operative  in  determining  the  direc- 
tion of  activity  in  the  association  paths  of  the  brain,  as 
well  as  in  the  innervation  of  the  muscles,  therefore  it  is 
not  enough  to  say  that  systems  of  thought  can  be  built 
up  according  to  the  interest  of  the  thinker.  It  would  be 
nearer  the  truth  to  say  that  it  is  inevitable  that  a  man's 
thinking  be  governed  by  his  interests,  that  is  to  say,  by 
his  fears  or  his  hopes,  except  as  it  is  turned  this  way  or 
that  by  the  facts  of  observation,  interpreted  by  those 
laws  of  thought  which  themselves  are  products  of  the 
facts  to  which  throughout  the  race-life  man  has  been 
compelled  to  adjust  his  notions  or  die. 

Because  of  the  effectiveness  of  judgments  of  prefer- 
ence felt  as  interest,  desire,  or  aversion  in  directing  the 
course  of  movements  within  the  brain,  in  all  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  historic  situation  systems  of  thought  and  belief 
have  seldom  been  wanting  to  sanction  the  actions  ap- 
proved by  the  leaders  of  society.  The  aptness  with  which 
supernatural,  metaphysical,  political,  and  economic  be- 
liefs have  corresponded  with  the  motives  evoked  by  vary- 
ing situations  is  matter  of  observation  to  the  student  of 
comparative  sociology.  This  commonly  implies  no  insin- 
cerity even  on  the  part  of  the  leaders  of  thought  who 
manipulate  opinions  to  their  own  advantage.  It  is  not 
that  men  pretend  to  believe,  but  that  they  actually  do 
believe,  that  which  accords  with  their  preferences  and 
interests.  Since  the  neighbor's  thought  of  his  neighbor, 


68  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

the  judge's  thought  of  his  case,  the  voter's  thought  of  his 
party,  the  business  man's  thought  of  capital  and  labor, 
the  tempted  man's  thought  of  his  conduct  and  his  future 
and  his  duty,  and  every  man's  thought  of  that  for  which 
he  really  cares  is  subtly  and  powerfully  drawn  toward  the 
conclusions  favored  by  his  preferences,  therefore  it  is 
of  the  highest  importance  that  the  truth-seeking  interest 
should  itself  be  reenforced  by  a  judgment  of  preference, 
in  order  that  it  may  function  undeterred  by  other 
motives.  This  is  the  hard  demand  of  intellectual  honesty, 
and  the  justification  of  Hammerton  when  he  wrote  that 
"disinterestedness  is  the  supreme  virtue  for  the  intellec- 
tual life." 

If  interest  has  shown  such  power  to  control  political 
and  economic  beliefs,  how  can  we  expect  to  escape  from 
baseless  illusions  if  we  enter  upon  realms  of  thought 
where  man  is  guided,  not  by  observation,  but  only  by  tenu- 
ous inferences  ?  We  live  "on  a  little  island  of  sense  and 
fact  in  the  midst  of  an  ocean  of  the  unknown."  While  we 
cannot  chart  that  ocean  nor  descry  its  distant  islands  we 
are  tempted  to  stand  gazing  out  to  sea.  To  assert  that 
beyond  the  observation  of  our  finite  faculties  evolved  to 
fit  our  conduct  to  the  facts  that  affect  our  little  lives, 
there  is  no  reality,  would  be  a  colossal  assumption  of 
dogmatism.  It  is  just,  moreover,  to  confess  that  the 
mind  in  which  the  intellectual  interest  is  strong  is  not 
free  from  the  urgency  of  preference.  This  preference 
often  takes  the  form  of  an  impatience  with  vague  uncer- 
tainties and  an  impulse  to  deny  the  existence  of  any 
reality  beyond  the  limits  of  observation.  The  mind 
guided  by  the  prompting  of  intellectual  interest  would 
round  off  its  knowledge  with  a  neat  boundary  of  utter 


THE  NATURE  OF  WILL  69 

ignorance  rather  than  see  it  fade  away  into  a  vague 
horizon  of  undemonstrable  inferences. 

The  only  defense  for  belief  in  causeless  freedom  is 
the  argument  that  if  we  only  knew  more  of  that  which 
lies  beyond  our  horizon  it  would  reverse  the  conclusion 
that  is  based  on  all  we  see,  and  that  since  belief  in  cause- 
less freedom  is  essential  to  the  worth  of  life,  that  fact 
is  a  reason  strong  enough  to  make  us  set  aside  all  other 
reasoning  upon  the  theme.  As  to  this  argument  three 
remarks  require  attention. 

First:  Whatever  is  true  of  faith  or  philosophy, 
science  cannot  be  influenced  by  such  an  argument.  It  is 
the  mission  of  science  to  carry  as  far  as  possible  our 
knowledge  of  the  interrelationships  of  observable 
phenomena.  The  particular  business  of  sociology,  as 
science,  is  to  carry  as  far  as  observation  and  reason  war- 
rant the  explanation  of  prevalent  social  activities  in 
terms  of  causally  conditioning  phenomena.  And  sociology 
may  carry  this  explanation  so  far  as  to  yield  the  con- 
elusion  that,  for  science  at  least,  human  action,  instead 
of  being  an  exception  to  the  law  of  causation,  and  inde- 
pendent of  conditions,  is  in  fact  of  all  classes  of  phenom- 
ena the  one  most  intricately  inwoven  with  conditions,  the 
consummate  exemplification  of  the  law  of  causation.  It 
is  only  by  the  speculations  which  overleap  the  limitations 
of  science  that  we  can  take  any  other  view  of  man's 
activities. 

Second:  What  is  true  of  science  in  this  respect  is  true 
also  of  the  practical  conduct  of  life.  Whatever  our  philo- 
sophic creed,  we  must  act  as  citizens  of  a  realm  of  cause 
and  effect.  By  our  faculties,  developed  for  practical 
exercise,  and  by  the  necessities  of  our  existence,  we  are 


70  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

compelled  to  act  as  if  human  conduct  were  caused.  And 
if  experiment  is  a  test  of  truth,  then  this  belief  concerning 
our  actions  and  those  of  our  fellow  men,  if  it  be  not  the 
whole  truth,  is  yet  true.  Within  the  limits  of  observation 
set  by  our  finite  faculties  this  system  of  causal  relation- 
ships regularly  and  consistently  presents  itself. 

Third:  We  may  therefore  inquire,  Can  it  be  that  in 
order  to  make  life  worth  living  we  must  reverse  the  con- 
clusions of  observation  and  experience  and  infer  that 
what  our  faculties  disclose  to  us  of  life  is  erroneous  and 
false?  Are  we  justified  in  inferring  such  a  fundamental 
and  thoroughgoing  self-contradiction  between  observable 
nature  and  ultimate  reality?  Do  we  in  fact  need  the 
belief  in  uncaused  freedom  in  order  to  save  the  worth  of 
life?  Sociology,  as  science,  could  leave  this  question 
unanswered  and  rest  its  case  upon  the  first  remark  just 
made  but  for  the  fact  that  sociology,  as  science,  cannot 
escape  the  problems  of  ethics,  and  must  inquire  what  are 
the  answers  to  the  questions  of  ethics  which  reason  and 
observation  furnish  to  the  sociologist  as  he  takes  a  natural 
science  view  of  life.  Sociology,  by  its  investigation, 
makes  the  causation  of  human  activity  more  obvious  than 
ever.  It  may  even  render  the  old  doctrine  of  moral  phi- 
losophy quite  untenable  for  instructed  minds.  If  so,  will 
this  prove  their  ruin  ?  Would  greater  ignorance  be  better 
for  us?  Or  does  the  same  investigation  which  renders 
the  assumption  of  causeless  freedom  so  difficult  and  so 
utterly  opposed  to  the  scientific  interpretation  of  life,  at 
the  same  time  reveal  a  sounder  basis  for  ethical  value 
and  obligation,  and  is  the  ancient  assumption  of  causeless 
freedom  only  one  more  instance  in  the  long  list  of 


THE  NATURE  OF  WILL  71 

cherished  dogmas  defended  at  great  pains,  found  at  last 
to  have  been  a  needless  incubus  upon  the  mind? 

The  sole  argument  in  favor  of  the  uncaused  freedom 
of  man  is  the  argument  that  no  other  view  will  work, 
that  here  we  must  forsake  observation  for  speculation 
dictated  by  practical  preference  or  else  adopt  an  unlivable 
world  view.  On  this  ground  we  may  choose  to  say  with 
Professor  James  that  we  simply  will  not  believe  so  ill  of 
the  universe  as  this.20 

Says  Mr.  Balfour:  "If  naturalism  be  true,  or,  rather, 
if  it  be  the  whole  truth,  then  is  morality  but  a  bare  cata- 
logue of  utilitarian  precepts ;  beauty  but  the  chance  occa- 
sion of  a  passing  pleasure;  reason  but  the  dim  passage 
from  one  set  of  unthinking  habits  to  another.  All  that 
gives  dignity  to  life,  all  that  gives  value  to  effort,  shrinks 
and  fades  under  the  pitiless  glare  of  a  creed  like  this."  21 
And  Eucken  adds:  "What  is  it  after  all  which  in  spite 
of  an  accumulation  of  apparently  unanswerable  argu- 
ments in  its  favor,  again  and  again  causes  man  to  strive 
beyond  determinism  ?  It  is  the  fact  that  the  logical  conse- 
quence of  determinism  can  be  nothing  less  than  the 
destruction  of  everything  which  is  characteristic  of  the 
spiritual  and  intellectual  life  of  man."  22 

As  a  way  of  escape  from  the  apparent  logical  necessity 
of  belief  in  determinism,  the  world  once  welcomed  the 
teaching  of  Kant,  who  said  that,  although  in  the  world, 
as  we  observe  it,  all  is  causal  sequence,  this  must  be  a 
mere  appearance  and  all  our  observation  and  inference 
illusion,  and  that  beneath  this  false  appearance  there  must 

"James,  Principles  of  Psychology,  2. 

"Arthur  James  Balfour,   The  Foundations  of  Belief,  77.     New 
York  and  London,  1895. 
M  Eucken,  Main  Currents  of  Modern  Thought,  436. 


72  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

be  a  world  of  reality  where  freedom  reigns,  that  in  fact 
we  live  in  a  world  of  freedom  though  to  all  appearance 
we  live  in  a  world  in  which  all  our  actions  issue  as  the 
culmination  of  a  causal  sequence.23 

In  our  own  day  Bergson  comes  to  the  rescue  of  belief 
in  uncaused  freedom  stating  much  the  same  argument  as 
that  of  Kant  but  casting  it  in  the  phraseology  of  modern 
science.  The  substance  of  the  teaching  on  this  subject, 
both  of  Kant  and  of  Bergson,  is  contained  in  two  propo- 
sitions :  ( i )  Says  Kant :  It  is  a  world  of  mere  illusory 
appearance  and  not  the  world  of  reality  that  is  presented 
by  sense-perception,  and  understanding.  Therefore  we 
are  emancipated  from  all  conclusions  that  would  follow 
from  the  exercise  of  these  faculties.  Says  Bergson :  The 
intellect  is  evolved  in  order  to  enable  us  to  adapt  our  overt 
actions  to  our  material  environment,  but  life  in  its  essence 
is  not  material,  therefore  the  intellect  is  not  adapted  to 
know  life  in  its  essence  and  the  conclusions  of  reason  are 
not  applicable  to  life  itself.24  (2)  But  we  have  an  inner 
light  to  guide  us.  This  is  "practical  reason,"  says  Kant ; 
while  "perception  and  understanding"  leave  us  in  a  world 
of  causation,  "practical  reason"  utters  an  inner  voice  in 
man  which  still  assures  him  that  he  is  free.  It  is 
"instinct"  developing  into  "intuition,"  says  Bergson.25 
Intellect  is  only  a  specialization  of  life  adapted  to 
know  material  things  and  to  develop  ideas  that  accord 
with  the  laws  which  govern  material  things ;  but  instinct 

"  Kant,  Kritik  der  reinen  Vernunft,  Preface  xvi,  xxviii,  xxx,  7 ; 
Transcendental  Dialektik,  566  et  seq.;  Metaphysik  der  Sitten,  46 
et  seq.,  93  et  seq.,  301  et  seq. 

34  Bergson,  Creative  Evolution,  21,  par.  I ;  153,  154,  169*  et  passim. 
This  argument  is  more  fully  developed  in  Bergson's  Time  and  Free 
Will,  78,  80,  82,  90,  99,  112,  137,  160,  167,  170  et  seq. 

"Ibid.,  135-185,  especially  143,  151,  165,  168,  176,  177. 


THE  NATURE  OF  WILL  73 

is  life  itself.  According  to  both  Kant  and  Bergson,  the 
belief  that  perception  is  illusion  and  that  understanding 
is  blind  to  the  inner  meanings  of  life,  does  not  leave  us 
agnostic  concerning  that  which  lies  beyond  the  realm  of 
sense  perception;  on  the  contrary,  emancipated  from  the 
conclusions  of  understanding  and  the  so-called  facts  of 
perception,  we  are  free  to  adopt  a  philosophy  that  arises 
out  of  our  own  inner  consciousness.  Bergson's  emphasis 
upon  "instinct"  as  a  reliable  source  of  assurance  for  the 
belief  in  freedom  is  slight  compared  with  Kant's  emphasis 
upon  intuition,  or  "practical  reason."  Bergson's  main 
emphasis  is  upon  the  negative  argument  that  we  need  not 
believe  anything  that  observation  and  reason  assert  con- 
cerning our  own  activity. 

Thus  Kant  and  Bergson  agree  in  proposing  a  device 
for  ridding  the  mind  of  the  conclusions  of  observation 
and  understanding  in  order  that  it  may  be  free  to  accept 
a  conclusion  that  better  suits  our  preferences,  and  that  is 
supposed  to  issue  from  deeper  recesses  of  our  conscious- 
ness. But  they  adopt  slightly  different  methods  to  serve 
this  same  end. 

According  to  Kant,  time,  space,  and  cause  are  merely 
forms  of  thought  which  our  minds  impose  upon  the 
world.  As  seen  by  us  in  time  and  space,  phenomena  are 
arranged  in  causal  interrelationship.  But  he  asserts  that 
there  is  no  guaranty  that  phenomena  really  exist  in  time 
or  in  space  or  in  causal  relationships.  These,  he  says, 
are  merely  our  modes  of  thought.  Bergson  admits  that 
material  phenomena  are  actually  arranged  causally  and  in 
space,  but  asserts  that  life  and  action,  which  are  not 
material,  do  not  exist  in  space  but  in  time,  and  that  in 
time  there  is  no  causal  sequence. 


74  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

According  to  Bergson,  it  is  only  because  we  live  in  a 
world  of  material  objects  arranged  in  relations  of  space 
and  causation,  and  survive  by  manipulating  such  objects, 
that  the  faculty  of  reason  has  evolved  as  an  instrument 
exclusively  adapted  to  the  contemplation  of  phenomena 
so  arranged,  which  therefore  insists  upon  regarding  our 
own  acts  as  included  in  such  an  arrangement,  although  in 
truth  they  are  not  so  arranged.  Hence,  says  Bergson, 
reason  and  science  apply  only  to  the  material  world  and 
not  to  the  facts  of  life  itself.  Therefore,  he  tells  us,  "we 
must  break  with  scientific  habits  which  are  adapted  to  the 
fundamental  requirements  of  thought,  we  must  do  vio- 
lence to  the  mind,  go  counter  to  the  natural  bent  of  the 
intellect.  But  that  is  just  the  function  of  philosophy."  26 

The  defenders  of  uncaused  human  freedom  agree  that 
reason  based  on  observation  leads  certainly  to  belief  in 
determinism,  and  therefore  they  undertake  to  discredit 
reason  and  understanding.  Both  Kant  and  Bergson  tell 
us  we  must  cease  to  trust  the  powers  of  observation  and 
reasoning  in  order  that  we  may  listen  to  the  voice  of 
"practical  reason,"  "intuition,"  or  "instinct."  But  are 
we  sure  that  this  does  not  merely  mean  we  must  cease  to 
think  reasonably  in  order  that  the  process  of  thought  may 
follow  the  guidance  of  preference?  It  may  be  true  that 
if  one  can  suspend  the  process  of  intelligence  and  listen 
to  the  last  vague  whisper  of  consciousness  he  will  hear  the 
reassertion  of  the  doctrine  of  uncaused  freedom.  But  is 
he  sure  that  what  he  hears  is  anything  more  than  the 
echo  of  his  previous  belief,  the  belief  which  he  had  held 
from  earliest  childhood,  and  which  has  been  kept  alive 
by  preferences  but  which  the  voice  of  his  instructed  reason 

"Bergson,  op  cit.,  30. 


THE  NATURE  OF  WILL  75 

contradicts?  Will  the  children  of  a  future  generation, 
adjusted  to  the  world  view  of  the  instructed,  continue  to 
have  "intuitions"  and  "instincts"  of  uncaused  freedom? 

To  Kant's  doctrine  of  practical  reason  which  contra- 
dicts perception  and  understanding,  and  to  Bergson's 
doctrine  of  instinct  and  intuition,  Eucken  adds  the  doc- 
trine that  by  actively  living  upon  them  we  discover  the 
truth  or  falsity  of  our  ideas.  This  would  prove  every 
vagary  by  which  men  have  ever  continued  to  comfort  or 
pervert  their  lives.  It  is  no  proof  of  a  "transcendental 
spiritual"  conception  if  one  who  powerfully  desires  to 
believe  it,  by  drowning  critical  thought  in  action  and 
habitually  living  with  his  creed  is  able  to  "become  in- 
wardly superior"  to  doubt.  It  is  true,  however,  that  the 
test  of  action  reveals  the  truth  or  falsity  of  ideas  that  can 
collide  with  objective  facts.  And  therefore  no  rational 
being  can  act  as  if  the  doctrine  of  unconditioned  freedom 
were  true. 

If  it  be  true  that  belief  in  determinism  brings  all  life's 
values  down  in  ruin,  then  let  us  believe  in  uncaused 
freedom,  provided  we  honestly  can,  on  the  ground  that, 
our  faculties  being  limited  as  they  are,  it  is  more  probable 
that  they  mislead  us  when  they  teach  us  to  regard  our 
own  conduct  as  part  and  parcel  of  the  causal  consistency 
of  nature,  than  it  is  that  in  a  world  containing  so  much  of 
order  and  reason,  so  good  a  thing  as  man's  possibilities 
of  character  and  experience  should  only  come  in  sight  and 
never  be  realized.  But  we  cannot  be  justified  in  resorting 
to  so  desperate  a  shift  as  the  repudiation  of  our  own 
faculties,  without  first  making  sure  that  the  conclusion 
of  reason  and  observation  is  so  mischievous  as  is  alleged, 
and  that  the  belief  adopted  in  its  stead  is  in  fact  better 


;6  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

adapted  to  the  needs  of  life.  The  vehemence  with  which 
the  ruinous  consequences  of  unbelief  in  causeless  freedom 
are  set  forth  reminds  one  of  the  zeal  with  which  preachers 
have  insisted  upon  the  perdition  that  would  follow  un- 
belief in  the  most  untenable  points  of  a  vanished  ortho- 
doxy. And  as  the  church  now  finds  that  it  can  do  much 
better  without  those  impossible  doctrines  than  with  them, 
so  it  is  conceivable  that  the  liberation  of  thought  may  go 
a  step  further  and  that  we  may  discover  that  we  can  get 
on  better  without  the  doctrine  of  causeless  freedom  than 
with  it. 

The  mind  of  man  has  "shied  like  a  frightened  horse," 
from  belief  in  determinism,  but  when  boldly  gazed  upon 
and  then  adopted  and  put  to  the  test  of  practice,  it  may 
prove  better  for  the  purposes  of  life  than  the  belief  in 
causeless  freedom — this  is  the  theorem  which  we  are  now 
ready  to  examine.  Since  the  only  argument  for  belief 
that  the  activities  of  man  are  an  exception  to  the  appar- 
ently universal  consistency  of  nature  lies  in  the  suppo- 
sition that  abandonment  of  that  belief  will  involve  us  in 
moral  ruin,  let  us  squarely  face  the  question:  What 
would  be  the  ethical  consequences  of  belief  in  deter- 
minism? 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE  ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  OF  A  NATURAL  SCIENCE 
VIEW  OF  LIFE 

Belief  in  the  doctrine  stigmatized  as  "determinism"  l 
would  not  change  the  facts  concerning  the  nature  of  man. 
It  would  not  remove  from  our  vocabulary  the  words 
"f reedom"  and  "responsibility" ;  it  would  only  give  them 
an  altered  meaning.  It  would  give  them  a  definable  and 
intelligible  meaning  in  place  of  the  meaning  which,  as 
Bergson  expressly  admits,  cannot  be  defended  after  once 
it  has  been  defined. 

As  between  the  working  hypothesis  of  causeless  free- 
dom and  that  of  a  freedom  which  is  caused,  we  have  in 
favor  of  one,  all  observation  and  all  reason  based  on 
observation,  in  favor  of  the  other  nothing  but  an  invet- 
erate preference.  The  problem  of  freedom  has  commonly 
been  regarded  as  insoluble  only  because  we  have  pre- 
ferred not  to  accept  the  only  rational  solution  possible. 

The  question  now  before  us  is  whether  there  is  reason- 
able ground  for  this  preference  for  belief  in  causeless 
freedom;  whether  those  practical  ethical  advantages 

1This  is  a  dangerous  word.  Let  me  beg  the  reader  not  to  think 
that  I  undertake  to  defend  all  the  connotations  that  have  been 
given  to  it  or  to  any  other  word  that  has  become  involved  in  phil- 
osophical controversy,  but  to  hold  me  responsible  for  only  the  ideas 
which  I  expressly  state  or  which  are  inevitably  implied  in  my  state- 
ments. By  determinism  I  mean  simply  the  doctrine  that  every 
phenomenon  is  conditioned,  and  that  to  this  our  own  acts  are  no 
exception. 

77 


78  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

which  have  been  supposed  to  depend  on  this  belief  do  in 
reality  depend  upon  it;  whether  indeed  a  preponderance 
of  practical  advantage  may  not  follow  its  abandonment; 
whether  faith  in  causeless  freedom  is  not  one — perhaps 
the  last  and  highest — of  those  beliefs  which  in  every  field 
of  thought  men  have  formulated  in  order  to  serve  for 
practical  guidance  till  knowledge  came,  but  which  knowl- 
edge replaces  with  ideas  that  serve  practical  needs  far 
better.  Thus,  faith  in  incantations  to  bring  rain  in 
deserts  preceded  irrigation.  Thus,  the  belief  that  the 
day  could  be  lengthened  to  fit  the  journey  by  putting  a 
trig  in  the  crotch  of  a  tree  to  stop  the  sun  preceded 
clocks  and  automobiles.  Thus,  belief  in  the  witch  doctor 
and  later  in  bleeding,  blisters,  and  nostrums  was  held 
before  the  arrival  of  the  bacteriologist  and  antiseptic 
surgery.  In  the  material  realm  we  have  long  ago  replaced 
such  creeds  with  science,  for  in  the  material  realm  creeds, 
formed  to  fit  subjective  wants  give  way  to  science  formed 
to  fit  objective  facts  far  earlier  than  this  exchange  is 
made  in  the  social  and  ethical  realm.  In  the  latter  realm 
men  desiring  to  enlist  hopes  and  fears  as  motives  to  good- 
ness long  continued  to  teach  with  Job's  comforters  that 
the  righteous  always  prosper  in  basket  and  store  while 
only  the  wicked  suffer  boils  and  losses.  Thus,  men  living 
in  a  chaos  of  disorder  under  warring  chieftains  believed 
in  the  divine  rights  of  a  central  monarch,  and  later,  men 
suffering  from  the  tyrannies  of  central  monarchy  believed 
in  the  social  contract  as  the  historic  origin  of  justified  au- 
thority. And  thus,  men  knowing  little  or  nothing  of  the 
intricate  causation  of  human  action  and  therefore  unable 
to  work  out  any  far-sighted  program  of  social  control 
have  clung  to  the  doctrine  of  causeless  freedom  which 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  79 

turns  some  of  the  elements  of  psychic  causation  into  the 
right  direction  though  it  forfeits  the  effectiveness  of  con- 
trol that  comes  only  with  more  adequate  comprehension. 

A  favorite  method  of  preserving  faith  in  any  doctrine 
not  easy  to  defend  has  been  to  assure  us  that  without  that 
doctrine  we  cannot  live.  Without  faith  in  transubstan- 
tiation  there  is  no  absolution  but  only  endless  torment. 
Without  belief  in  baptism  by  immersion  there  is  no  wash- 
ing away  of  sins.  Without  faith  in  the  infallibility  of 
the  pope,  or  in  the  verbal  inerrancy  of  Scripture,  there 
is  no  assurance  of  any  religious  teaching,  no  guaranty 
of  any  plan  of  salvation.  Without  belief  in  causeless 
freedom  there  is  no  motive,  no  responsibility,  no  moral 
worth.  But  does  this  method  prove  anything?  People 
— that  is  to  say,  many  people — can  be  induced  to  believe 
anything  if  the  motive  is  strong  enough  though  the  proof 
is  nil.  The  part  played  by  this  principle  in  the  invention 
of  magic,  and  other  elements  of  creed,  is  an  essential 
factor  in  the  explanation  of  social  evolution.  Tell  sick 
men  that  a  given  faith  is  their  only  hope  or  cure  and  no 
absurdity  is  too  monstrous  to  command  belief. 

And  thus  we  have  been  urged  to  keep  our  faith  in 
causeless  freedom  because  on  it  all  ethical  values  and 
motives  depend,  and  to  eschew  a  natural  science  view  of 
life  because  morality,  beauty,  and  even  reason  itself 
(sic!)  lose  their  characteristic  value  "under  the  pitiless 
glare  of  a  creed  like  this."  Hence,  even  though  this 
"glare"  be  the  shining  of  the  light  of  truth  we  must  not 
look. 

We  are  told  that  there  is  no  beauty  in  the  rainbow  if 
we  cease  to  believe  that  "it  is  painted  on  the  cloud  by  the 
hand  of  God,"  and  think  instead  that  the  external  realities 


80  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

are  damp  cloud  and  reflected  vibration.  It  is  true  that 
to  strip  away  familiar  mental  associations  changes  expe- 
rience. But  what  if  our  experience  when  we  look  at  the 
rainbow  had  never  been  invested  with  these  associations  ? 
Do  such  associations  explain  the  delight  of  the  child  in 
the  rainbow?  Or  does  the  scientist  accustomed  to  a 
natural  science  view  of  the  rainbow  and  of  the  clouds  and 
the  moon  cease  to  feel  the  beauty  of  nature?  A  thousand 
times  no.  When  once  accustomed  to  the  loss  of  tradi- 
tional associations  he  finds  that  the  beauty  of  nature  is 
conditioned  only  by  nature  and  human  nature.  Likewise, 
we  are  told  that  if  moral  worth  is  not  the  product  of 
causeless  freedom  the  characteristic  value  of  morality  is 
gone,  and  the  difference  between  a  good  man  and  a  bad 
man  becomes  like  the  difference  between  a  good  lawn 
mower  and  a  bad  lawn  mower.  Very  well,  and  what  is 
the  difference  between  a  good  lawn  mower  and  a  bad 
one?  One  is  good  and  the  other  is  bad  for  its  purpose. 
And  what  is  the  purpose  of  a  man?  To  function  well 
with  reference  to  all  those  "social  values"  to  be  enu- 
merated in  our  next  chapter,  which  are  the  elements,  and 
in  their  union  constitute  the  totality,  of  human  happiness. 
The  difference  between  functioning  well  and  functioning 
badly  with  reference  to  these  values  of  human  life  is  as 
great  a  difference  as  any  moralist  can  conceive,  and  so 
long  as  human  nature  endures  this  difference  will  evoke 
our  enthusiasms  and  detestations. 

The  practical  motive  for  clinging  to  belief  in  causeless 
freedom,  the  motive  for  the  sake  of  which  we  are  willing 
to  stultify  our  own  reason,  nay,  eager  to  do  so,  and  ready 
to  expend  the  subtlest  ingenuity  in  devising  pretexts  for 
setting  aside  its  conclusions  is  twofold:  First,  the  fear 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  81 

that  a  natural  science  view  of  life  would  destroy  moral 
values,  that  if  our  acts  are  caused  they  have  no  moral 
quality,  and  character  no  moral  worth,  that  there  is  then 
no  merit  and  no  sin,  no  place  for  praise  or  blame,  reward 
or  punishment;  second,  the  fear  that  the  natural  science 
view  would  paralyze  motive,  that  if  our  acts  are  caused 
there  is  no  incentive  to  endeavor,  that  the  earnest  must 
sit  down  in  despair  saying :  "That  which  is  to  be  will  be 
and  we  cannot  make  it  otherwise";  and  the  light-minded 
will  abandon  themselves  to  impulse,  saying:  "Whatever 
our  negligence  or  excesses,  they  are  only  the  inevitable." 
I  propose  to  consider  this  twofold  objection  to  the  prac- 
tical effects  of  a  natural  science  view  of  life  and  to  show: 

1.  As  to  moral  values, 

a.  That  after  accepting  the  natural  science  view  the 
sense  of  moral  values,  of  right  and  wrong  in  con- 
duct, and  good  and  evil  in  character  would  con- 
tinue ; 

b.  That  reward  and  punishment  would  not  cease, 

but  would  be  even  more  clearly  justified  and 
more  effectively  applied. 

2.  As  to  motives  to  endeavor,  that  they  would  be  in- 
tensified rather  than  diminished. 

i.     a.     THE  EFFECT  OF  A  NATURAL  SCIENCE  VIEW  OF 
LIFE  ON  MORAL  VALUES 

The  sense  of  right  and  wrong  is  a  feeling  reaction. 
It  is  the  functioning  of  an  inborn  predisposition  to  expe- 
rience certain  feelings  of  disgust  and  abhorrence  or  of 
admiration  and  enthusiasm  for  types  of  conduct.  Our 
predisposition  to  moral  discrimination  and  our  predis- 


82  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

position  to  esthetic  discrimination  are  similar,  or,  rather, 
they  are  fundamentally  the  same.  We  have  similar  reac- 
tions toward  the  morally  sordid,  corrupt,  and  mean  as 
toward  the  physically  hideous,  and  similar  reactions 
toward  the  morally  pure  and  heroic  as  toward  the  physic- 
ally beautiful  and  sublime.  We  express  our  feelings  to- 
ward moral  and  material  beauty  by  many  of  the  same 
adjectives,  and  the  poet  and  the  preacher  evoke  and 
express  our  moral  approvals  and  repugnances  by  images 
of  material  hideousness  and  beauty.  Beauty  and  ugliness 
in  the  realm  of  human  action  differ  from  beauty  and 
ugliness  in  the  realm  of  visible  objects  no  more  radically 
than  the  latter  differ  from  beauty  and  ugliness  in  the 
realm  of  sound.  The  identity  of  nature  between  the  pre- 
disposition to  esthetic  discrimination  and  the  predisposi- 
tion to  moral  discrimination  further  appears  in  that  both 
are  manifestations  of  a  natural  adaptation  or  inborn  ad- 
justment to  survival  and  successful  life.  Sensitiveness  to 
physical  beauty  and  ugliness  is  one  form  of  adaptation  to 
life  in  the  world  of  things  2 ;  sensitiveness  to  moral  beauty 
and  ugliness  is  the  same  form  of  adaptation  to  life  in  the 
world  of  men.  This  similarity,  or  identity,  again  appears 
in  that  while  we  have  a  strong  inborn  tendency  to  both 
esthetic  and  moral  preferences  and  repugnances,  just 

a  "Elevation  and  serenity  of  mood  have  a  biological  value,  and  it 
would  be  dreadful  if  the  aspects  of  nature  were  to  us  harsh  and 
•disquieting.  We  have  become  at  home  in  our  terrestrial  habitation. 
The  principle  of  familiarity  is  at  work  to  make  us  at  home  in  any 
surroundings  to  which  we  are  long  exposed;  in  a  strange  environ- 
ment we  miss  the  result  of  its  gentle  ministry  and  grow  homesick, 
and  are  deeply  moved  by  one  familiar  sight.  The  principle  of 
familiarity  is  perhaps  the  most  fundamental  element  in  beauty 
aside  from  conventionality  to  which  it  is  not  unrelated.  But  there 
is  also  a  principle  of  novelty  which  helps  to  make  objects  beautiful." 
From  the  author's  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Sociology,  504.  In 
the  same  passage  various  other  principles  of  beauty  are  discussed. 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  83 

what  we  shall  find  preferable  and  what  repugnant,  either 
esthetically  or  morally,  is  largely  influenced  by  experi- 
ence and  education.  We  may  prefer  the  negro  or  the 
Mongolian  or  the  Caucasian  type  of  beauty,  the  array 
of  the  Zulu  warrior  or  the  current  Parisian  styles.  And 
similarly,  we  may  approve  the  moral  code  of  the  Thugr 
patriarchal  polygamy,  or  the  "divine  institution  of 
slavery."  There  are  certain  principles  that  help  to  deter- 
mine what  we  shall  regard  as  beautiful,  for  example, 
harmony,  symmetry,  and  supposed  appropriateness  to 
human  uses.  And  there  is  a  principle  of  moral  beauty, 
namely,  that  conduct  which  regards  all  and  disregards 
none  of  the  values  recognized  as  pertaining  to  our  own 
group  or  to  any  member  of  it,  whether  our  group  be  a 
primitive  horde  or  the  brotherhood  of  humanity,  seems  to 
us  morally  good,  while  an  act  performed  with  knowledge 
that  it  tends  to  destroy  some  recognized  value  pertaining 
to  our  group  or  to  a  member  of  it  seems  to  us  morally 
bad  and  ugly.  In  either  esthetic  or  moral  repugnance 
and  appreciation  the  ground  of  the  reaction  in  the  har- 
mony or  disharmony,  symmetry  or  asymmetry,  of  the  ob- 
ject or  in  the  harm  fulness  or  beneficence  of  the  act  may 
be  less  vivid  in  consciousness  than  the  feeling  reaction. 
A  conventionalized  moral  sentiment  may  be  vivid  in  the 
case  of  a  child  or  adult  who  has  never  thought  clearly 
about  the  practical  judgment  underlying  that  sentiment. 
Moral  responsibility  conceived  as  blameworthiness  or 
praiseworthiness  is  liability  to  favorable  or  unfavorable 
emotional  reaction;  our  own  emotional  reaction,  the 
emotional  reaction  of  our  neighbors,  and  the  supposed 
emotional  reaction  of  God.  Now  instinctive  and  conven- 
tional emotional  reaction  and  its  expression  in  various 


84  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

forms  of  instinctive  and  conventional  punishment  and 
reward  serve  a  valuable  purpose  in  primitive  society ;  and 
these  instinctive  and  conventional  emotional  reactions 
towards  human  character  and  conduct  would  be  modified 
by  the  adoption  of  a  natural  science  view  of  life.  But 
while  all  esthetic  response  is  modified  by  education  it  is 
not  thereby  obliterated,  instead  it  is  likely  to  be  intensified 
at  many  points.  Instinctive  esthetic  feelings  toward 
good  and  evil  conduct,  though  they  would  be  modified  by 
education,  would  no  more  be  eradicated  by  recognizing 
the  fact  that  good  and  evil  conduct  are  natural — that  is, 
caused — phenomena  than  esthetic  feelings  toward  flowers 
and  sunsets  are  eradicated  by  our  knowledge  that  flowers 
and  sunsets  are  natural  phenomena. 

The  emotional  reaction  which  we  feel  toward  char- 
acter and  conduct  is  not  simple  but  complex.  It 
includes,  on  the  one  hand,  instinctive  disgust  and  anger 
and  hate  and,  on  the  other,  instinctive  admiration,  emula- 
tion, tenderness  and  loyalty.  Just  because  these  emotions 
are  instinctive  they  are  not  to  be  eradicated  by  any  change 
in  theory.  Changes  in  our  ideas  never  eradicate  a  human 
instinct  or  predisposition,  but  only  cause  changes  in  the 
objects  by  which  an  instinct  is  aroused  and  in  the  re- 
sponses by  which  the  instinct  is  manifested.  If  any  of 
these  emotions  were  likely  to  be  partially  inhibited  by  a 
natural  science  view  it  would  be  anger-hate.  And  we  can 
very  well  afford  some  diminution  in  the  cruder  manifes- 
tations of  anger  and  hate.  The  very  strength  of  instinc- 
tive anger  and  hate  makes  us  resist  a  theory  that  tends 
to  check  us  from  giving  free  rein  to  the  blind  exhibition 
of  that  emotion.  Yet,  even  this  emotion  will  not 
become  obsolete  however  widely  the  natural  science  view 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  85 

of  life  may  be  adopted.  An  instinct  cannot  thus  be 
obliterated.  It  will  only  be  made  more  rational  in  the 
direction  it  takes,  and  the  manifestations  it  prompts. 
Anger  is  the  emotion  that  accompanies  resistance  to  that 
which  opposes  our  will,  whether  we  irrationally  kick  the 
chair  that  stands  in  our  way  or  reasonably  push  benevo- 
lent plans  despite  selfish  opposition.  The  Freudians 
affirm  that  sex  impulse,  unrecognized  as  such,  transfuses 
all  forms  of  endeavor  with  tenderness  and  zeal.  There  is 
at  least  equal  evidence  that  sublimated  anger  remains  an 
element  in  nearly  all  strenuous  effort. 

We  feel  hatred  and  anger  toward  the  rattlesnake  or 
the  tiger  that  we  see  killing  a  child,  notwithstanding  we 
are  all  determinists  in  our  views  concerning  rattlesnakes 
and  tigers.  But  the  determinist's  revulsion  toward  the 
evil  deed  of  a  man  will  be  something  more  and  other  than 
his  rage  at  the  rattlesnake  or  the  tiger.  All  tigers  and 
rattlesnakes  kill,  but  not  all  men  kill  or  are  cruel  or  deceit- 
ful to  their  group-mates,  and  we  have  an  inborn  emo- 
tional discrimination  between  men  who  do  and  men  who 
do  not  commit  such  acts,  and  between  those  acts  which 
destroy  and  those  which-  promote  the  interest  of  our 
group  and  of  its  members. 

Furthermore,  the  instinctive  emotions  that  we  feel 
toward  our  own  conduct  when  we  have  "a  sense  of  moral 
desert"  or  toward  the  conduct  of  others  when  we  praise 
or  blame,  are  tremendously  heightened  by  the  sentiments 
which  society  about  us  has  taught  us  to  entertain  toward 
the  different  forms  of  conduct.  The  power  of  society 
over  the  sentiments  of  its  members  is  shown  by  the  fact 
that  these  sentiments  vary  as  they  do  from  age  to  age 
and  from  place  to  place.  This  astonishing  variability  as 


86  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

to  the  forms  of  conduct  which  are  praised  or  blamed  is 
one  of  the  most  impressive  lessons  of  comparative 
sociology.  These  variations  in  sentiment  rest  upon  varia- 
tions in  the  estimates  that  have  been  placed  by  social 
leaders  upon  the  harmfulness  or  beneficence  of  different 
acts.  In  so  far  as  the  individual's  emotional  discrimina- 
tion toward  his  own  conduct  and  that  of  others  is  not 
purely  instinctive,  but  is  due  to  social  incitement  of  the 
instinctive  tendency,  it  will  not  be  destroyed  in  the  indi- 
vidual by  any  change  in  theory  unless  that  change  in 
theory  prevents  the  development  and  inculcation  of  moral 
sentiments  by  the  social  leaders  and  by  the  folk  sense. 
And  since  social  incitement  of  moral  sentiment  is  based 
on  the  judgments  of  social  leaders  and  folk-experience 
as  to  the  good  and  bad  effects  of  conduct  it  follows  that 
whatever  clarifies  the  perception  of  causal  relations  be- 
tween conduct  and  its  consequences  rectifies  the  moral 
sentiments  of  society  both  as  to  the  conduct  to  be  ap- 
proved or  disapproved  and  as  to  the  strength  of  these 
sentiments.  Adoption  of  the  natural  science  view  of  life 
tends  powerfully  to  increase  the  clearness  with  which 
consequences  are  traced  to  conduct  and  with  which  moral 
normality  and  abnormality  are  defined,  and  consequently 
to  heighten  the  insistence  and  the  wisdom  with  which 
society  inculcates  the  beauty  of  the  one  and  its  fitness  to 
be  emulated,  and  the  hideousness  of  the  other  as  a  trait 
of  a  rational  being  able  to  foresee  the  consequences  of 
his  deeds.  So  long  as  we  retain  our  social  nature  we  shall 
continue  to  catch  the  sentiments  of  society  toward  evil 
forms  of  conduct  and  shrink  from  those  types  of  conduct 
which  are  condemned  by  the  social  sentiments  in  which 
we  share.  In  fact  the  old-fashioned  view  allows  us  to 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  87 

regard  our  baser  acts  as  failures  to  express  our  true 
selves,  to  regard  them  as  evils  which  we  might  have 
chosen  to  reject.  But  natural  science  compels  us  to  re- 
gard them  as  inevitable  self -revelation,  and  this  makes 
the  anticipation  of  such  acts  all  the  more  revolting;  and 
acts  which  are  sufficiently  revolting  in  anticipation  are 
not  inevitable,  they  are  prevented. 

And  what  of  the  worth  and  beauty  of  virtue?  Would 
virtue  be  less  precious  if  recognized  as  a  natural  product? 
Not  one  whit,  but  only  less  pharisaical.  We  have  seen 
that  repugnance  and  disgust  and  admiration,  tenderness, 
emulation,  and  loyalty  toward  human  character  are  in- 
stinctive in  the  same  sense  as  other  esthetic  discrimination, 
and  at  the  same  time  are  reenforced  by  social  education 
in  the  same  sense  as  other  esthetic  discrimination.  No 
change  in  the  theory  we  are  discussing  can  extinguish 
them  so  long  as  we  retain  our  instinctive  tendencies  to 
feel  repugnance  and  appreciation  and  to  catch  socially 
radiated  sentiments.  We  can  no  more  cease  to  regard 
virtue  as  beautiful  than  we  can  cease  to  regard  the  sunset 
as  beautiful.  It  is  true  that  emotion  is  heightened  by 
familiar  associations,  and  in  the  generation  that  makes 
the  change  any  considerable  departure  from  familiar 
opinions  may  disturb  conventional  sentiments.  But  in 
the  long  run,  the  natural  science  view  of  life  cannot 
eradicate  our  instinctive  tendency  to  discriminate  between 
the  beautiful  and  the  hideous  in  human  conduct.  On  the 
contrary  it  strengthens  the  social  development  of  senti- 
ments of  moral  discrimination,  for  their  social  develop- 
ment depends  upon  rational  perception  of  the  good  and 
evil  consequences  of  conduct,  and  that  rational  percep- 


88  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

tion  is  distinctly  clarified  by  the  natural  science  view  of 
human  life. 

"But,"  says  the  objector,  "do  you  mean  to  claim  that 
we  shall  love  and  admire  goodness  as  much  and  attach 
to  it  as  great  worth  if  we  believe  that  it  is  the  inevitable 
product  of  heredity  and  environment  and  not  the  imme- 
diate creation  of  the  will  of  the  good  man?"  I  answer, 
Why  not?  Do  we  love  and  value  the  beauty  of  a  woman 
less  because  it  is  the  product  of  nature  and  not  of  her 
own  endeavor?  Would  she  be  gratified  if  assured  that 
we  regarded  her  beauty  as  a  product  of  her  efforts  to 
beautify  herself  and  not  natural  to  her?  Do  we  admire 
and  value  the  intellect  of  a  man  less  because  intellect  is 
an  unmistakable  natural  endowment,  and  does  any  man 
attach  less  value  to  his  powers  because  they  are  native, 
and  not  acquired  by  an  effort  of  the  will?  Moral  excel- 
lence is  not  different  in  this  respect.  A  good  will  is  not 
a  separate  and  peculiar  faculty.  It  is  the  whole  of  a  man; 
it  is  the  net  result  of  his  personality.  To  be  one  who 
functions  normally,  consistently,  and  beneficently  under 
the  causal  prompting  of  his  own  mental  states  is  the 
highest  merit  that  man  has  ever  claimed,  and  that  is  no 
whit  abated  by  a  natural  science  view  of  life. 

i.     b.     THE  EFFECT  OF  A  NATURAL  SCIENCE  POINT  OF 
VIEW  ON  REWARDS  AND  PUNISHMENTS 

Now  for  the  second  proposition  under  the  first  head, 
namely,  that  under  a  natural  science  view  of  life  good  and 
evil  conduct  will  still  be  rewarded  and  punished.  Society 
will  no  more  have  lost  its  right  and  disposition  to  punish 
bad  men  because  they  and  their  acts  will  be  regarded  as 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  89 

natural  phenomena  than  it  has  lost  its  right  and  disposi- 
tion to  wage  war  against  tigers,  rattlesnakes  or  the  boll 
weevil.  And  as  the  foregoing  argument  shows,  and  as  the 
experience  of  determinists  illustrates,  our  sentiments  to- 
ward bad  men  would  continue  to  be  all  that  we  feel 
toward  the  tiger  or  the  boll  weevil,  and  more  because  of 
the  hideous  abnormality  of  such  conduct  in  man.  The 
arm  of  the  law  has  grown  unsteady  and  weak.  Nothing 
can  give  it  back  its  power  but  frank  adoption  of  a  natural 
science  view  of  the  rational  basis  for  severity,  which  is 
social  protection  through  deterrence,  restraint,  and  ref- 
ormation. 

"Retributive  justice"  has  meant  simply  the  degree  of 
severity  that  coincided  with  the  emotions  of  those  who 
inflicted  it,  or  of  the  group  who  sanctioned  it.  "Justice" 
at  one  time  and  place  requires  the  penalty  of  death  for  an 
act  which  elsewhere  "deserves"  little  Or  no  punishment. 
Justice  cannot  be  successfully  administered  in  an  ad- 
vanced society  on  the  level  of  unrationalized  instinct. 
Instinct  prompts  both  a  severity  that  is  capricious  and 
ill-directed  and  a  sentimentality  that  is  irrational.  A 
natural  science  view  of  crime  would  give  to  the  arm  of 
law  much-needed  reinforcement  and  guidance.  It  would 
prevent  us  from  setting  at  liberty  the  degenerate  or  the 
victim  of  abnormal  rearing,  saying  as  our  excuse,  "He 
cannot  be  blamed  and  ought  not  to  be  punished,"  and  it 
would  prevent  us  from  tolerating  the  immaculate  and 
elegant  gentleman  whose  wholesale  sinning  murders  hun- 
dreds and  robs  men  of  millions  but  whose  personal  attrac- 
tions allow  him  to  escape  crude  instinctive  disapproval. 
It  would  prompt  a  perfectly  rational  exercise  of  severity 
in  the  spirit  of  social  surgery,  the  severity  being  propor- 


90  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

tioned  not  to  the  crudely  instinctive  repugnance  and  anger 
aroused  by  the  criminal  and  his  acts  but  to  the  harmful- 
ness  of  his  deeds  to  society  and  to  the  strength  of  the 
temptation  from  which  men  must  be  deterred.  It  would 
spare  no  form  of  crime,  but  would  be  hardest  on  the  most 
gilded  and  the  most  destructive  forms  of  crime. 

We  have  now  seen  that  the  natural  science  view  of  life 
has  m  power  to  annul  the  instinctive  feelings  of  revulsion 
and  admiration  with  which  we  contemplate  the  good  or 
evil  deeds  of  men  nor  the  sentiments  of  approval  and  of 
disapproval,  enthusiasm  and  detestation  which  have  been 
socially  acquired.  Instead  it  clarifies  the  ethical  judg- 
ments which  underlie  these  feelings,  and  also  guides  and 
reenforces  the  arm  of  the  law.  So  much,  then,  for  the 
notion  that  under  a  natural  science  view  of  life  we  should 
lose  our  sense  of  moral  values  and  our  right  to  reward 
or  punish.  We  are  now  ready  to  consider  the  second 
aspect  of  the  fear  which  deters  the  mind  from  accepting 
the  only  possible  solution  of  the  so-called  insoluble  prob- 
lem of  freedom,  namely,  the  fear  that  its  solution  would 
destroy  the  motives  to  endeavor. 

2.    THE  EFFECT  OF  THE  NATURAL  SCIENCE  POINT  OF 
VIEW  ON  THE  MOTIVES  TO  ENDEAVOR 

The  view  of  life  which  we  are  discussing  contains  two 
propositions :  First,  our  acts  are  caused ;  second,  our  acts 
are  causes.  The  fear  that  this  view  would  diminish  our 
sense  of  the  importance  of  our  own  activities  and  lessen 
our  disposition  to  carry  them  on  with  energy  is  due 
mainly  to  the  fact  that  our  startled  attention  has  been  so 
fixed  by  the  first  of  these  two  propositions  as  to  cause  us 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  91 

almost,  or  quite,  to  overlook  the  second.  If  our  zest  in 
action  seems  to  be  destroyed  by  the  fact  that  our  acts  are 
caused,  it  is  not  merely  restored  but  intensified  by  con- 
templation of  our  acts  as  causes. 

"Voluntary"  conduct  is  that  which  we  approve  and  to 
which  we  lend  ourselves  with  full  consent  because  of  the 
results  toward  which  it  tends  or  because  of  the  satisfac- 
tion which  we  find  in  its  continuance.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  natural  science  view  to  diminish  our  satisfaction  in 
activity,  and  nothing  to  diminish  but  everything  to 
increase  the  vividness  with  which  we  foresee  results. 
There  are  two  conditions  of  zestful  activity  or  "en- 
deavor" :  First,  human  nature,  the  instinctive  tendencies 
or  predispositions,  which  cannot  be  affected  in  any  way 
by  theories  about  freedom  or  determinism ;  second,  ideas 
— ideas  about  the  present  objective  conditions  which  con- 
stitute the  occasion  for  action  and  about  the  consequences 
of  conduct — which  incite  the  instinctive  tendencies.  So 
long  as  ideas  about  present  occasion  and  anticipated 
result  are  sufficiently  clear  the  action  follows  with  undi- 
minished  zest  whatever  notions  men  may  have  about 
freedom  and  determinism.  A  hungry  man  with  money 
in  his  pocket  will  not  stand  motionless  before  the  door  of 
a  restaurant  and  starve  because  he  is  a  determinist.  Let 
a  determinist  know  that  there  is  deadly  poison  in  the  draft 
he  is  about  to  drink  and  his  hand  already  raised  is  stayed. 
Let  him  know  that  he  has  already  taken  deadly  poison 
and  the  draft  is  the  antidote  and  the  antidote  is  taken 
with  alacrity.  The  determinist  does  not  lack  motive. 
Ideas  are  causes.  This  is  not  contradiction  or  diminution 
of  motive  but  states  what  is  the  very  nature  of  motive, 
and  has  been  so  during  all  the  years  when  men  have  be- 


92  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

lieved  in  causeless  freedom,  and  during  the  other  years 
before  they  began  to  puzzle  their  brains  about  the  theory 
of  conduct.  Ideas  are  causes  of  acts  and  acts  are  causes 
of  consequences :  this  is  the  very  formula  of  motive  and 
of  responsibility. 

The  natural  science  view  of  life  is  not  that  the  hungry 
man  may  be  satisfied  whether  he  eats  or  not,  and  that 
the  poisoned  man  will  be  saved  from  suffering  and  death 
whether  he  takes  the  antidote  or  not,  but  that  a  normal 
man  will  eat  and  will  take  the  antidote,  and  that  if  he  does 
not  eat  or  take  the  antidote  he  will  inevitably  suffer  the 
consequences.  The  natural  science  view  of  life  consists 
in  a  clear  and  emphatic  realization  of  the  causal  nexus, 
of  the  absolute  dependence  of  our  future  and  the  future 
of  others  on  our  present  functioning.  It  does  not  teach 
merely  that  the  future  depends  on  the  past  but  that  the 
future  depends  on  the  present,  the  present  of  our  con- 
scious activity.  And  if  the  past  has  been  one  of  normal 
evolution  that  has  left  us  neither  crippled  nor  idiotic,  then 
the  past  has  equipped  us  with  forward-tending  propul- 
sions and  powers,  and  we  shall  rejoice  in  their  exercise, 
and  this  exercise  of  our  powers  will  be  all  the  more  zest- 
ful  and  eager  if  the  past  has  equipped  us  also  with  an 
adequate  realization  of  the  direct  and  inevitable  depend- 
ence of  the  future  on  our  present  activity. 

Once  realize  that  our  acts  and  our  ideas  are  causes,  that 
from  them  inevitably  flow  consequences  good  or  evil,  and 
every  normal  human  being  is  impelled  toward  seeking 
true  ideas  and  performing  the  actions  that  will  condition 
the  results  to  be  desired.  The  thought  of  the  inevitable, 
natural,  causal  connection  between  our  thoughts  and  deeds 
and  their  consequences,  instead  of  destroying  motive,  is 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  93 

the  most  urgent  form  which  the  motives  to  thought  and 
conduct  can  take.  The  man  who  takes  a  natural  science 
view  of  life  knows  that  he  must  do  or  die,  and  cause  the 
death  of  others,  and  having  that  knowledge  he,  above 
all  men,  does  do  and  live  and  bring  life  to  others. 

It  is  a  pure  misconception  to  confuse  scientific  deter- 
minism with  the  creed  of  fatalism,  like  that  held  by  some 
of  the  Greeks,  by  the  Mohammedans,  and  by  many  of 
us.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  scientific  determinism  is  the 
opposite  of  such  popular  fatalism.  Fatalism  teaches  that 
something  comes  down  upon  the  situation  and  shapes  it  in 
spite  of  the  causes  working  in  it.  It  says,  "Do  not  shrink 
from  going  to  battle  and  facing  a  discharge  of  rifles. 
You  will  not  be  shot  unless  you  are  fated  to  be  shot  to- 
day." Determinism  says,  "If  you  stand  up  before  the 
aim  of  a  rifle  when  it  is  discharged,  you  surely  will  be 
hit;  nothing  can  prevent  the  conditions  from  leading  to 
their  consequences,  and  the  only  way  to  control  conse- 
quences is  to  shape  conditions." 

Fatalism  is  such  a  violation  of  common  sense,  science, 
and  human  nature  that  there  never  was  such  a  thing  as 
a  consistent  fatalist.  No  one  but  a  suicide  or  a  crazy  per- 
son would  act  upon  the  creed  of  fatalism  if  he  knew  that 
he  had  swallowed  a  deadly  poison  and  had  the  adequate 
antidote  presented.  A  consistent  fatalist  under  such' 
circumstances  ought  to  say,  "There  is  no  occasion  to  take 
the  antidote.  If  I  am  fated  to  live,  I  shall  live,  and  if  I 
am  fated  to  die,  I  shall  die,  with  or  without  either  poison 
or  antidote."  No  consistent  fatalist  ought  ever  to  work. 
He  ought  merely  to  say,  "These  acres  will  bear  me  their 
harvest  and  I  shall  be  fed  and  sustained  if  it  is  so  to  be." 

Fatalism  is  a  faith  that  men  adopt  in  the  presence  of 


94  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

results  the  causation  of  which  is  obscure,  and  in  regard 
to  which  they  wish  to  escape  the  responsibility  that  deter- 
minism forces  upon  them.  It  is  a  comforting  doctrine 
for  one  who  must  face  bullets.  "Fatalism"  and  "special 
providence"  are  the  metaphysical  and  theological  phases 
of  the  same  thing.  Each  is  a  faith  adopted  as  a  comfort 
in  those  cases  in  which  the  conditioning  of  consequences 
is  not  obvious  and  responsibility  is  not  willingly  accepted, 
the  sense  of  living  under  inscrutable  protection  from  the 
consequences  of  conduct  being  desired.  The  determinist, 
on  the  other  hand,  knows  that  conduct  will  lead  inevitably 
to  its  consequences. 

That  knowledge  is  responsibility.  The  moral  effect  of 
determinism  is  not  only  to  reenforce  motive  but  to  inten- 
sify the  sense  of  responsibility,  that  is,  the  sense  of  being 
a  link  in  the  causal  chain,  and  of  functioning  beneficially 
or  destructively. 

To  see  my  thoughts  as  causes  of  acts  and  my  acts  as 
causes  of  good  or  evil  consequences,  adds  propulsion  to 
both  thought  and  deed.  Instead  of  reducing  me  to  effort- 
less despair  or  recklessness,  it  adds  to  the  motive  power 
with  which  my  life  proceeds.  Consistent  and  intelligent 
belief  in  causation  increases,  instead  of  diminishing,  both 
the  sense  of  responsibility  (in  the  rational  sense  of  that 
word)  and  also  the  power  of  all  rational  motives. 

For  consciousness  I  am  my  activities.  I  am  aware  of 
the  part  I  play  in  the  causal  process.  I,  as  I  act,  am  a 
link  in  the  causal  nexus  that  sees,  though  dimly  and 
imperfectly,  other  links  on  which  my  act  depends  and  the 
consequences  that  depend  upon  it. 

It  is  the  fact  that  ideas  are  causes  that  makes  it  worth 
while  to  give  warning  to  the  man  about  to  drink  the 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  95 

poison,  and  that  prompts  all  instruction.  It  is  the  realiza- 
tion of  this  fact  that  makes  us  seek  for  knowledge  as  the 
seed  of  all  good  conduct,  that  makes  the  hungry  man 
inquire  the  way  to  a  restaurant,  that  makes  the  poisoned 
man  seek  to  know  what  is  the  antidote,  that  furnishes  the 
practical  motive  to  research  and  reflection. 

This  view  of  life  keeps  me  pursuing  thoughts,  and 
translating  thoughts  into  deeds.  I  cannot  stop  so  long  as 
I  hold  this  creed.  I  cannot  let  stand  untasted  the  antidote 
for  the  poison  I  have  drunk;  I  cannot  let  my  field  go 
unplowed;  I  cannot  cease  from  endeavor.  Nor  can  I 
cease  from  the  pursuit  of  ideas  that  are  the  seed  of  all 
good  conduct  and  experience  or  from  seeking  the  helpful 
environment  that  echoes  with  true  and  wise  ideas,  spoken 
and  embodied,  which  make  their  appeal  to  my  propensi- 
ties. Only  death  or  the  loss  of  reason  can  reduce  me  to 
the  unreasonable  state  of  inactivity.  Only  sleep,  exhaus- 
tion, or  the  uncertainty  of  contradictory  psychic  states 
can  temporarily  interrupt  the  issuance  of  the  psychic 
process,  which  I  am,  in  deeds.  And  the  more  vivid  my 
creed  of  causation  the  more  powerful  the  propulsion.  I 
do  not  think  myself  a  god,  creating  my  acts  out  of  noth- 
ing, nor  a  spangled  fairy  with  a  wand,  but  I  think  myself 
a  representative  of  that  species  which  holds  in  trust  the 
accumulated  heritage  of  evolution,  aware  that  in  my  func- 
tioning I  supply  the  causal  link  required  to  bring  to  ful- 
fillment the  possibilities  of  good  which  I,  with  my  kind, 
realize  in  consciousness.  Perhaps  I  ought  to  lose  the 
sense  of  the  zest  and  worth  of  life  because  I  have  lost 
the  theory  which  has  long  been  orthodox  with  moral 
philosophy,  but  that  sense  of  zest  and  worth  will  not  leave 
me.  Is  it  inconsistent  for  one  who  does  not  regard  him- 


96  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

self  as  the  creator  of  his  acts,  but  rather  as  a  conscious 
link  in  the  causal  process  by  which  psychic  states  arise 
within  him  and  issue  in  deeds  corresponding  to  the  fore- 
knowledge included  in  those  psychic  states,  who  feels  the 
knowledge  that  wisdom  is  guidance  urging  forward  the 
search  for  wisdom,  and  the  knowledge  that  good  can  be 
had  and  done  issuing  in  strenuous  exertion,  is  it  incon- 
sistent for  such  a  man  to  find  zest  in  hope,  activity,  and 
achievement?  If  so,  it  is  inconsistent  with  an  outgrown 
theory  and  not  with  the  facts  of  life. 

To  superficial  thought  it  has  appeared  that  the  belief 
that  my  act  is  caused  will  stop  my  act,  relax  my  striving. 
But,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  it  does  not  have  that  effect. 
To  know  that  the  act  by  which  I  take  the  antidote  for  the 
poison  I  had  drunk  is  caused  by  the  nature  of  my  muscu- 
lar and  nervous  structure  and  by  the  warning  and 
directions  which  I  have  received  does  not  prevent  my 
taking  the  antidote,  and  does  not  prevent  me  from 
struggling  for  it  if  necessary.  All  fear  that  this  belief 
will  relax  human  striving  is  based  on  the  merest  illusion, 
with  no  foundation  in  fact.  Belief  in  fate,  belief  that 
consequences  will  come  independent  of  my  act  might  re- 
lax my  effort ;  but  we  have  seen  that  belief  in  fate  is  the 
opposite  of  determinism.  Determinism  teaches  that  con- 
sequences are  made  inevitable  by  my  act  as  truly  as  my 
act  is  made  inevitable  by  the  past.  The  illusion  that  a 
natural  science  view  of  life  will  nullify  endeavor  is  based 
upon  the  absurdity  of  omitting  the  present  from  the  con- 
catenation of  time.  That  illusion  results  from  saying  the 
future  depends  upon  the  past  instead  of  saying  the  pres- 
ent depends  on  the  past  and  the  future  depends  on  the 
present.  The  latter  is  the  natural  science  view  of  life 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  97 

and  it  impels  us  to  act  in  the  living  present  so  that  it  may 
be  the  point  of  explosion  in  which  the  past  culminates 
into  the  future.  As  the  burning  point  travels  along  a 
fuse,  so  the  present  travels  along  the  course  of  time.  In 
it  alone  life  comes  to  consciousness.  And  it  is  a  point 
of  vivid  activity  all  the  more,  and  vastly  more,  because  we 
know  that  it  not  only  is  the  culmination  of  the  past  but 
also  the  determinant  of  the  future. 

The  natural  science  view  of  life  alone  gives  us  a  com- 
prehensible view  of  the  method  of  human  salvation.  It 
is  asked,  Can  one  repent  who  believes  that  all  his  past 
acts  were  caused?  He  can.  The  old  notion  that  good 
and  evil,  right  and  wrong,  depend  on  a  creative  fiat  of 
volition  has  been  the  greatest  preventive  of  obedience  to 
that  maxim  of  wisdom  and  virtue:  "know  thyself."  Be- 
cause one  has  not  deliberately  preferred  and  approved 
evil,  but  has  slid  into  evil  by  instinct,  or  laziness,  or  habit, 
he  thinks  himself  good.  This  is  the  very  leaven  of 
Pharisaism.  Many  a  pious  sinner  interested  in  the  sal- 
vation of  "the  world"  does  not  save  his  own  home,  never 
discovers  his  own  besetting  sin  nor  his  own  urgent  duty. 
Many  a  complacent  person  is  a  burden,  a  life-embittering 
irritant,  a  blight  who  might  be  healing  and  light  and 
achieve  both  heroism  and  joy.  Even  the  titanic  malefac- 
tor in  business  and  politics  is  generally  self-excused. 

The  disbeliever  in  causeless  freedom  can  repent  but 
his  repentance  will  not  be  cast  in  the  old  phrases.  The 
traditional  formula  of  repentance  is :  "I  could  have  done 
better  and  next  time  I  will."  The  deterministic  formula 
of  repentance  is :  "That  revealed  me.  I  could  do  no  bet- 
ter than  that."  It  is  as  if  a  man  discovered  himself  to 
be  deformed  or  weak  of  muscle.  He  does  not  say,  "Next 


98  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

time  I  will  do  better/'  but,  "Next  time  I  shall  do  no  better 
under  equally  trying  conditions  unless  in  the  meantime 
I  have  become  something  other  than  I  then  was.  There 
are  two  things  that  can  change  a  man  for  the  better. 
Both  of  these  I  must  seek.  The  first  is  within  myself ;  it 
is  attention  or  adjustment.  This  revulsion  within  me 
when  I  think  of  my  wrong  action  and  its  probable  con- 
sequences, and  the  setting  of  my  tendencies  when  I  con- 
template the  better  way  make  me  for  the  moment  a  differ- 
ent man,  and  if  I  often  enough  repeat  my  attention  to  my 
ideal,  I  shall  thereby  be  periodically  fortified  and  besides 
there  will  result  some  lasting  tendency  of  readjustment. 
Since  ideas  are  causes,  this  knowledge  will  cause  me  to 
direct  my  attention  thus;  it  will  make  me  feed  upon  the 
saving  ideal  as  a  hungry  man  takes  food  or  a  poisoned 
man  the  antidote.  And  attention  thus  directed  to  the 
approved  ideal  is  an  agency  of  salvation.  The  second 
condition  of  reconstruction  is  outside  me;  in  some  en- 
vironments my  evil  propensity  becomes  clamorous,  in 
other  environments  it  slinks  away  and  my  better  nature 
arises  and  assumes  control.  This  knowledge  prompts  me 
to  seek  the  favoring  environment,  scenes,  books,  persons, 
as  I  would  seek  food  and  shun  poison." 

Too  much  good  resolution  dies  before  January  is  out 
because  we  have  been  taught  to  rely  upon  the  fiat  of  our 
own  will.  Vain  reliance !  To-day's  resolution  is  only  one 
causal  fact;  it  must  be  renewed  by  habitual  attention  to 
the  chosen  good,  and  fostered  by  the  auspicious  environ- 
ment. To  expect  changes  in  personal  conduct  and  char- 
acter from  a  single  good  resolve,  is  like  expecting  a  har-t 
vest  to  grow  in  response  to  the  fiat  of  the  will  without 
plowing  or  planting. 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  99 

Precisely  this  is  the  principle  of  causation  upon  which 
the  achievements  of  religion  in  reality  have  depended. 
When  the  sinner  is  told  that  "the  unaided  human  will" 
cannot  transform  him,  that  daily  he  must  pray  and  read 
the  Bible  and  come  often  and  regularly  to  the  mission 
chapel,  it  means  that  attention  to  the  chosen  good  must 
be  frequently  renewed  and  that  the  favoring  environment 
must  be  sought.  Thus  he  enlists  the  causal  agencies 
within  and  about  him. 

Determinism  rids  the  mind  of  the  illusion  that  salva- 
tion can  be  secured  by  a  single  experience  of  conversion. 
However  momentous  and  however  precious,  conversion 
can  be  only  the  beginning  of  a  course  of  life  that  must 
continue  in  the  same  direction,  if  life's  full  fruition  is  to 
be  attained.  Likewise,  determinism  disposes  of  the  no- 
tion that  one  may  as  well  sow  wild  oats  for  a  time  in 
anticipation  of  a  late  amendment  of  one's  way  that  will 
set  everything  right.  Every  day  has  its  irreversible 
effects  which  may  in  part  be  offset,  but  which  can  never 
be  annihilated.  Life  is  a  unity  of  causal  sequence.  One 
can  no  more  delay  for  a  day  to  move  on  the  path  of 
progress  and  achievement  than  a  racer  can  stop  in  his 
course,  for  if  he  does,  that  day's  opportunity  will  pass 
him  never  to  be  overtaken. 

Such  knowledge  as  this,  says  the  determinist,  will  be 
the  direct  cause  of  constancy  and  fidelity,  of  daily  renewal 
of  attention  to  those  objects  of  contemplation  that  prove 
their  power  to  raise  life  to  its  highest  levels,  and  of 
association  with  the  environments  that  assist  achievement. 

But  the  objector  responds:  "If  thoughts  are  causes, 
why  do  not  men  always  do  as  well  as  they  know?"  The 
determinist  replies:  "Because  thoughts  are  not  the  only 


ioo  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

causes;  there  are  also  habit  and  instinct."  The  conclu- 
sions of  reason  only  elicit  and  guide  inborn  or  acquired 
dispositions  to  action.  The  ideas,  whether  they  are  pre- 
sented by  deliberate  reason,  focusing  upon  the  matter 
in  hand  all  the  data  of  past  and  present  experience  and 
reflection,  or  whether  they  are  presented  by  momentary 
sense  perception,  switch  the  current  of  energy  into  this  or 
that  mechanism  of  action.  In  some  directions  the  wires 
have  never  been  connected,  the  mechanism  is  out  of  gear 
and  the  wheels  rusted  on  their  axles;  in  other  directions 
the  mechanism  is  well  oiled  and  smooth,  ready  to  move 
at  a  touch.  This  is  the  method  of  habitual  conduct. 
Every  human  being  has  a  set  of  ideas  that  he  lives  by, 
and  other  ideas  that  are  laid  away  on  the  high  shelves  of 
memory;  and  certain  avenues  of  speech  and  thought 
whose  mechanism  he  keeps  always  in  use  and  others  that 
are  seldom  or  never  called  into  play.  It  is  conversion 
when  he  awakens  some  of  these  little  heeded  thoughts 
that  had  been  like  mummies  on  the  shelves  of  a  catacomb 
and  gives  them  a  place  at  the  fireside  of  his  mind's  warm 
interest  and  at  the  table  of  his  daily  contemplation,  and 
they,  having  their  due  places  and  residence  in  his  atten- 
tion, open  the  long-closed  avenues  of  potential  conduct. 
Conversion  is  the  readjustment  of  interest  and  attention 
that  brings  into  causal  functioning  new  ideas  or  ideas 
that  have  been  neglected,  and  in  some  degree  crowds  out 
those  that  have  occupied  the  mind;  and  since  thoughts 
are  causes,  there  follows  a  corresponding  readjustment  of 
conduct;  old  mechanisms  of  habit  are  disused  and  other 
avenues  of  conduct  open  with  greater  and  greater  readi- 
ness and  ease. 
Such  a  readjustment  of  interest  and  attention  cannot 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  ipi 

come  about  without  a  cause.  It  tnay .  be,  that;  -by  th~: 
gradual  accumulation  of  experiences,  of  joys  and  disap- 
pointments, of  perceptions  and  reflections,  a  certain  point 
of  saturation  is  reached  and  a  new  reagent  is  precipitated 
in  the  subtle  chemistry  of  consciousness;  or  to  change  the 
figure,  some  reservoir  of  thought  and  feeling  is  gradually 
filled  by  the  accumulating  experiences  of  life  till  at  last 
it  overflows  the  dam  that  shut  it  in  and  turns  loose  new 
power.  This  gradual  accumulation  of  the  effects  of  ex- 
perience until  they  cause  a  shifting  of  emphasis  in 
habitual  attention  may  be  assisted  by  the  changes  in 
organic  tendency  that  come  with  years.  But  though  con- 
version may  conceivably  be  occasioned  by  this  gradual 
accumulation  of  mental  responses  to  familiar  stimula- 
tions, it  usually  requires  also  as  a  condition  some  par- 
ticular outward  stimulation,  either  in  the  appeal  of  a 
person  or  persons  who  emphasize  new  or  neglected  ideas 
and  who  radiate  appreciation  for  those  ideas,  or  in  some 
new  experience  that  forces  the  attention  into  a  new 
adjustment. 

We  all  are  frequently  undergoing  conversions,  that  is, 
alterations  in  the  contents  of  the  mind;  resulting  in  cor- 
responding alterations  in  conduct.  It  is  such  a  conver- 
sion when  we  learn  from  a  sign  or  a  passer-by  that  we 
are  not  on  the  right  street  to  find  the  house  we  seek  and 
turn  about,  or  when  we  receive  directions  for  a  task  and 
set  out  to  discharge  it,  or  when  we  are  appointed  to  a  new 
field  of  labor.  But  it  is  a  terrible  waste  of  life's  possi- 
bilities if  we  ever  need  conversion,  in  the  sense  in  which 
it  used  to  be  thought  necessary  to  salvation;  that  is,  if 
we  live  to  maturity  upon  our  instinctive  level  of  activity, 


102  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 


by  /habits  of  thought3  and  interest,  of 
speech  and  conduct  that  must  be  unlearned  if  we  are  to 
be  fit  for  the  level  of  advancement  to  which  human 
society  has  attained.  To  avoid  this  tragic  waste  is  the 
business  and  meaning  of  adolescence  and  education. 

CONCLUSION 

The  traditional  fear  of  a  natural  science  view  of  life 
and  the  vehement  warnings  against  it  arise  from  two 
illusions:  First,  the  illusion  that  such  a  view  will  oblit- 
erate moral  values  and  destroy  the  basis  for  reward  and 
punishment;  second,  the  illusion  that  it  will  relax  the 
sense  of  individual  responsibility  and  unnerve  endeavor. 

These  illusions  Should  be  dispelled.  This  fear  should 
be  allayed.  If  we  will  but  look  with  open,  honest  and 
unfrightened  eyes  upon  the  only  possible  solution  of  the 
problem  of  human  freedom  we  shall  perceive  that  the 
practical  advantages  do  not  lie  with  the  traditional  con- 
ception to  which  men  cling  with  so  precarious  a  hold,  but 
that  the  facts  of  life  as  they  exist  in  nature  are  better 
friends  to  man  —  who  is  himself  a  part  of  nature  —  than 
are  his  own  fond  speculations. 

At  the  close  of  the  preceding  chapter  we  saw  that 
the  doctrine  of  causeless  freedom  requires  the  mind  to 
commit  a  kind  of  suicide,  and  exercise  its  utmost  in- 
genuity to  discredit  the  conclusions  of  observation  and 
reason.  The  doctrine  of  determinism,  on  the  other  hand, 
gives  us  the  strongest  if  not  the  only  guaranty  of  the 
trustworthiness  of  our  faculties.  The  doctrine  of  cause- 

'To  speak  of  "habits  of  thought"  is,  of  course,  an  extension  of 
the  word  habit,  beyond  the  overt  responses  to  which  that  word  is 
usually  applied. 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  103 

less  freedom  takes  man  out  of  the  chain  of  causation 
which  is  nature  and  thereby  deprives  him  of  all  certain 
knowledge  of  nature.  The  view  of  science  leaves  the 
conscious  activities  of  men  in  the  unbroken  nexus  of 
nature,  caused  and  causing,  and  thereby  assures  us  of  a 
certain  correspondence  between  our  conscious  states  and 
the  objective  world.  In  its  efforts  to  defend  the  doctrine 
of  causeless  freedom  the  traditional  philosophy  has  sac- 
rificed all  claim  to  the  validity  of  our  knowledge  of  the 
external  world,  in  the  sense  of  correspondence  between 
our  ideas  and  the  external  facts  which  our  ideas  pretend 
to  report,4  and  has  done  so  because  of  a  vain  and  baseless 
fear.  But  for  this  fear  few  philosophers  would  have 
held  the  problem  of  freedom  to  be  insoluble  or  have 
asserted  that  the  reports  of  our  intelligence  are  an  illusion 
from  which  we  must  escape. 

We  have  seen  that  in  spite  of  our  philosophy,  in  order 
to  produce  practical  results  in  the  social  world,  the  world 
of  human  life,  we  are  obliged  to  act  as  if  our  thoughts 
and  deeds  and  those  of  our  associates  were  caused. 
Whatever  our  metaphysics,  it  still  remains  true  that  to 
observation  our  acts  appear  to  be  conditioned  by  other 
phenomena,  such  as  our  weariness  or  freshness,  our 
glands  and  our  nerves,  our  food  and  our  drinks,  our 
travel  and  our  money,  our  books  and  our  associations,  our 
opportunities  and  our  stimuli.  For  observation  and  for 
practice  no  phenomena  are  more  variable,  in  response  to 
variations  in  conditions,  than  the  thoughts,  tastes,  inter- 
ests, ambitions,  and  practices  of  men.  The  difference 


4  That  the  nature  of  this  correspondence  (which  is  discussed  in 
Chapter  XII)  is  very  different  from  what  ignorance  has  imagined 
in  no  way  lessens  its  importance. 


104  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

between  the  savage  ancestors  of  the  English-speaking 
race  and  their  descendants  of  to-day  is  not  the  product 
of  an  incalculable  agency,  whose  effects  have  no  intel- 
ligible relation  to  conditions.  Causal  connection  (in  the 
naive  scientific  sense)  alone  gives  intelligibility  to  a  suc- 
cession of  events,  or  renders  them  amenable  to  rational 
control.  Without  the  connections  of  antecedents  and 
consequences,  all  human  activity  would  appear  as  an  in- 
extricable confusion  and  hurly-burly,  an  unmanageable 
and  unimaginable  mix-up  and  madhouse.  But,  on  the 
other  hand,  the  frank  acceptance  of  the  view  that  human 
activity  and  experience  are  caused,  not  only  opens  to 
scientific  investigation  and  interpretation  the  whole  range 
of  social  life,  but  also  justifies  us  in  regarding  it  as  the 
supreme  Held  for  practical  endeavor. 

Finally,  in  opposition  to  the  natural  science  view  of  life 
there  remains  only  the  fostered  fear  which  arises  from 
that  twofold  illusion  which  this  chapter  has  discussed. 
As  to  the  first  aspect  of  that  illusion,  namely,  that  the 
conclusion  reached  by  observation  and  reason,  common 
sense  and  science  obliterates  the  distinction  between  good 
and  evil  conduct  and  destroys  the  wortn  of  goodness  and 
the  punishableness  of  badness,  we  have  seen  that  sense 
of  moral  worth  and  blame  is  composed  of  two  elements. 
The  first  is  instinctive  and  therefore  inherent  and  in- 
eradicable by  any  change  of  theory.  The  second  element 
in  sense  of  moral  worth  and  blame  is  social  sentiment 
directing  instincts  of  approval  and  disapproval  toward 
conduct  which,  judged  by  its  consequences,  is  beneficial 
or  harmful.  And  we  have  seen  that  the  natural  science 
view  of  life  clarifies  and  strengthens  the  judgments  which 
evoke  instinctive  approval  and  enthusiasm  or  disapproval 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  105 

and  detestation.  We  have  seen  that  to  be  free  is  not  to 
be  freed  from  oneself  to  act  irrespective  of  one's  nature 
or  one's  past,  but  it  is  to  be  such  a  self  as  possesses  the 
developed  power  to  function  regularly  in  conduct  which 
expresses  one's  own  deliberately  approved  aims.  The 
actions  of  such  a  self  do  not  lose  their  value  by  being 
regarded  as  the  culmination  of  evolution  instead  of  issu- 
ing magically  out  of  a  momentary  fiat.  We  have  seen, 
moreover,  that  this  view  does  not  abolish  social  surgery 
but  gives  to  the  arm  of  law  much-needed  guidance  and 
force.  The  second  aspect  of  the  illusion  that  has 
frightened  us  into  timid  faith  in  an  "undefinable"  free- 
dom, which  is  an  "insoluble  problem"  and  involves  the 
painstaking  stultification  of  our  minds,  is  that  the  natural 
science  view  of  life  will  relax  responsibility  and  unnerve 
endeavor.  We  have  seen  that  as  a  matter  of  fact  and  of 
experience  it  does  not  have  that  result.  Habitually  to 
regard  our  conduct  as  the  inevitable  resultant  of  our  char- 
acter and  environment  as  well  as  the  cause  of  inevitable 
consequences  to  ourselves  and  others,  instead  of  relaxing 
the  sense  of  responsibility,  intensifies  it,  and  transforms 
repentance  from  an  experience  largely  misguided  and 
often  futile  into  intelligent  cultivation  of  better  possibili- 
ties; and  instead  of  unnerving  endeavor  it  clarifies  our 
motives  and  impels  us  to  intenser,  more  constant  and 
more  rational  exertion  of  our  powers. 

This  is  the  conclusion  of  a  natural  science  view  of  the 
world  with  reference  to  freedom  and  responsibility:  If 
freedom  means  that  the  acts  of  man  may  issue  undeter- 
mined by  the  functioning  of  his  cerebroneural  mechan- 
ism, by  the  peculiarities  of  his  inborn  nature,  or  by  any- 


106  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

thing  in  his  education  or  past  experience  or  present  sur- 
roundings, then  no  man  was  ever  free.  But  if  freedom 
means  so  to  function  as  to  attain  results  chosen  by  our 
own  reason,  then  men  can  be  free,  and  a  natural  science 
view  of  life  helps  them  to  achieve  freedom.  By  nature, 
education  and  resulting  endeavor  one  may  become  capable 
of  central  control  so  that  his  acts  are  the  expression  not 
merely  of  sense  perception  appealing  to  instinct  and  pre- 
disposition, but  also  of  the  wisdom  stored  by  the 
experience  and  reflection  of  the  individual  and  of  the 
race.  Then,  knowing  which  path  leads  to  evil,  he  will 
avoid  it,  and  knowing  which  leads  to  good,  he  will  follow 
it,  not  driven  about  by  vagrant  thoughts  and  accidental 
percepts,  but  by  his  organized  intelligence  functioning  as 
the  cause  of  his  overt  deeds.  Such  a  man  in  his  rounded 
selfhood  is  the  cause  of  his  conduct — caused  but  a  cause 
— the  highest  expression  of  causal  correlation.  He  is  the 
cause  of  consequences  approved  by  his  own  intelligence 
and,  in  that  sense,  free.  And  if  moral  responsibility 
means  that  some  have  the  right  to  look  upon  others  with 
supercilious  contempt  instead  of  pity,  and  to  punish 
others  in  the  spirit  of  unmitigated  anger  and  unchastened 
instinctive  vengeance,  or  "retribution,"  instead  of  in  the 
.spirit  of  corrective  surgery  or  defense,  then  Christ  and 
the  determinist  do  not  believe  in  moral  responsibility. 
But  if  moral  responsibility  means  first,  that  conduct  re- 
veals what  the  man  is ;  and  second,  that  conduct  leads  to 
its  own  appropriate  consequences ;  that  he  who  finds  him- 
self other  than  he  would  be  may  know  of  a  course  of 
action  that  would  make  him  better  than  he  is,  and  that, 
having  such  knowledge,  if  he  be  a  normally  developed 


ETHICAL  ADVANTAGES  107 

man,  he  will  follow  it  as  he  would  take  food  and  shun 
poison;  if  it  means  that  the  present  is  the  causal  culmina- 
tion out  of  which  the  future  springs,  and  that  our 
thoughts  and  deeds  are  the  seeds  of  inevitable  life  and 
death;  then  the  natural  science  view  of  life  is  not  only 
true  and  reasonable  but  adapted  far  better  than  the  com- 
mon view  to  heighten  the  sense  of  responsibility  and  to 
evoke  constancy  and  energy  in  well  guided  endeavor, 


CHAPTER  VII 
THE  SOCIAL  VALUES 

Interests  or  desires  are  spoken  of  by  many  sociologists 
as  "the  social  forces"  and  the  "causes"  of  human  action. 
But  feeling  cannot  be  the  cause  of  human  action,  for  it 
is  an  element  in  human  action.  To  call  feeling  the  cause 
of  human  action  is  like  calling  the  beating  of  the  heart 
the  cause  of  human  life.  The  beating  of  the  heart  and 
the  respiration  of  the  lungs  are  essential  parts  of  man's 
physical  life,  as  thought  and  feeling  are  parts  of  his  con- 
scious life.  It  has  been  and  still  is  the  fashion  to  say 
that  social  realities  are  explained  when  they  are  referred 
to  motives.  But  socially  developed  wants  are  quite 
as  characteristic  and  essential  parts  of  the  social  reality 
to  be  explained  as  overt  practices.  If  by  motive  is  meant 
a  specific  desire  or  other  sentiment  felt  by  one  group  of 
men  and  not  by  mankind  universally,  then  it  is  part  and 
parcel  of  the  social  activity  to  be  explained. 

And  if  by  motive  is  meant  a  biological  capacity  for 
feeling  common  to  all  mankind,  such  as  the  emotional 
side  of  an  instinct  or  predisposition,  like  fear  or  hunger, 
that  is  indeed  a  part  of  the  explanation  of  human  conduct, 
but  such  a  biological  or  psychophysical  tendency  or  capac- 
ity is  never  the  whole  or  adequate  explanation  of  any  so- 
cial fact.  There  must  always  be  a  stimulus  to  call  the 
capacity  into  exercise;  each  social  fact  is  conditioned  by  a 

108 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  109 

social  environment  and  a  social  past  and  also  by  a  mate- 
rial environment,  which  may  be  both  artificial  and  geo- 
graphic. It  is  an  amazing  thing  that  sociologists  will  in 
one  paragraph  emphasize  the  claim  that  the  instincts  and 
predispositions  of  men  are  the  same  in  China  and  in 
America,  in  the  Stone  Age  and  in  the  present,  and  in  the 
next  paragraph  defend  the  view  that  these  inborn  traits 
are  the  explanation  of  social  activities  that  differ  so  widely 
as  do  those  of  China  and  America,  or  of  the  Stone  Age 
and  the  twentieth  century.1 

The  word  "feeling"  will  be  used  in  this  chapter  to 
mean  not  the  causes  of  experience  but  qualities  in  ex- 
perience, and  feelings  will  be  spoken  of  not  as  the  means 
of  explaining  social  activities,  but  as  the  means  of 
evaluating  them. 

But  are  not  these  value  elements  in  human  experience 
the  most  intimately  individual  of  all  realities,  and  if  so, 
by  what  justification  do  we  speak  of  them  as  "social" 
values?  They  are  indeed  in  the  core  of  individual  life 
and  experience,  but  individual  and  social  life  and  experi- 
ence are  only  different  aspects  of  one  and  the  same 
reality.  Religious  experience,  scientific  activity,  the  work 
of  a  carpenter  or  of  a  banker,  the  reading  of  books,  the 
enjoyment  of  art,  the  wearing  of  clothes,  and  the  eating 
of  soup,  roasts  and  ices  with  silver  and  china  at  table, 
and  all  activities  in  which  we  find  value,  except  socially 
unmodified  biological  functions,  are  social  activities,  that 

*An  article  entitled  "The  Social  Forces  Error,"  published  in  the 
American  Journal  of  Sociology,  xvi.  613  and  642,  combats  this 
error  and  sets  forth  what  the  writer  conceives  to  be  the  scientific 
conception  of  sociological  explanation.  Also  published  with  discus- 
sion in  the  Proceedings  of  the  American  Sociological  Society, 
v.  77- 


i  io  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

is  to  say,  products  of  social  evolution,  elements  in  the 
process  of  social  life;  and  the  values  contained  in  such 
activities  are  the  social  values.  There  are  no  ultimate 
social  values  except  those  which  are  realized  in  the  ex- 
perience of  the  individuals  who  compose  society,  and 
whose  socially  evolved  activities  in  their  totality  and  in- 
terrelation constitute  the  life  of  society.  It  is  by  their 
effect  upon  values  which  are  realized  in  individual  lives, 
massed  into  the  life  of  society,  that  all  social  organiza- 
tion, all  progress,  and  all  projects  must  be  judged. 

A  recent  brilliant  monograph  has  proposed  a  "transi- 
tion to  an  objective  standard  of  social  control,"  to  be 
applied  in  measuring  the  success  of  our  efforts  to  pro- 
mote social  progress  and  welfare  and  in  determining  the 
direction  in  which  pressures  should  be  applied.  The 
objective  standard  proposed  is  the  social  order  itself; 
that  is,  efforts  at  social  control  are  to  be  regarded  as 
successful  in  proportion  as  they  tend  to  maintain  or 
improve  the  social  order.  With  reference  to  this  pro- 
posal two  remarks  may  be  made:  „ 

First :  The  social  order  itself  is  not  objective  but  -sub- 
jective, if  by  subjective  is  meant  psychic.  Professor 
Cooley  is  justified  in  choosing  as  the  subtitle  of  his  book, 
Social  Organisation,  the  phrase,  "A  Study  of  the  Larger 
Mind."  Disapproval  of  private  vengeance,  insistence 
upon  monogamous  marriage,  belief  in  future  rewards 
and  punishments,  regard  for  the  authority  of  specialists, 
the  sentiment  of  patriotism, — these  and  other  psychic 
realities  are  the  stuff  of  which  the  social  order  is  com- 
posed. The  institution  of  trial  by  jury  is  not  an  oak  or 
mahogany  or  parchment  bench,  bar,  and  panel,  but  a  set 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  in 

of  ideas  and  approvals,  formed  in  the  public  mind,  which 
would  speedily  replace  the  material  apparatus,  if  that 
apparatus  should  be  destroyed  by  fire.  The  Christian 
church,  as  a  factor  in  the  social  order,  is  not  the  meeting 
house,  but  a  body  of  beliefs,  sentiments,  and  practices 
which  unite  the  people  among  whom  they  prevail.  It  is 
not  strictly  accurate  to  say  that  the  Christian  church  is 
even  the  body  of  people  so  united.  These  people  are 
much  more  than  their  church:  they  are  the  bearers  of 
trades  and  callings,  domestic  and  political  activities,  and 
much  besides,  as  well  as  of  the  life  of  their  church, 
though  perhaps  in  nothing  else  united.  If  they  should 
lose  their  faith,  and  their  religious  activity  should  cease, 
their  church  would  be  destroyed,  though  the  people  still 
lived  in  other  activities.  The  Christian  church  may  be 
introduced  among  a  population  where  it  had  not  existed, 
simply  by  introducing  into  the  lives  of  those  people  the 
necessary  psychic  elements,  that  is,  the  faiths  and  prac- 
tices of  the  Christian  church.  The  social  order,  funda- 
mentally considered,  is  a  system  of  psychic  activities. 

Second:  If  the  social  order  is  to  be  the  standard  of 
social  control,  then  what  social  order,  the  existing  one? 
In  that  case  no  prophets  should  invite  stones  nor  Christ 
dare  the  cross.  But  if  not  the  present  one,  shall  it  be  the 
one  advocated  by  the  socialists,  or  the  one  advocated  by 
the  Mormons,  or  some  other?  Clearly  no  social  order 
can  be  regarded  as  the  standard,  since  every  social  order 
must  itself  be  measured.  What  then  is  the  standard  by 
which  to  determine  what  social  order  should  be  striven 
for  ?  By  what  can  we  measure  a  social  order  save  by  its 


H2  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

effects  upon  the  values  which  are  to  be  realized  in  human 
experience.2 

ALL  VALUE  is  IN  ACTIVITY 

Our  actions  are  like  a  shield,  one  side  of  which  is 
exposed  to  the  world,  the  other  pressed  against  the  heart. 
The  inner  side  of  activity  is  emotion,  satisfaction,  desire, 
and  pain.  Even  the  thought  of  an  action  is  itself  an 
activity  with  its  lining  of  desire  and  satisfaction.  When 
circumstances  hinder  our  actions,  still  the  inner  activity 
may  continue  like  the  straining  of  a  man  in  chains,  and 
though  it  cannot  show  its  outer  side  in  overt  deeds,  yet 
its  inner  side  may  be  hot  and  vivid  or  cold  and  heavy 
to  our  own  passionate  or  dogged  consciousness.  This 
mere  thought  of  action  is  itself  an  activity,  a  functioning, 
which  is  not  wholly  robbed  of  satisfaction  so  long  as  it 
is  a  thought  of  completer  action  that  the  future  may 
allow;  but  when  it  is  the  thought  of  completer  action  that 
can  never  be,  then,  deserted  by  satisfaction,  desire  alone 
becomes  despair.  But  our  normal  activity  rushes  on,  at 
the  same  time  tingling  both  with  desire  and  with  satis- 
faction. Without  activity  there  is  neither  desire  nor  sat- 
isfaction, but  only  stagnation,  stupor,  death. 

Desire  and  satisfaction  both  are  phases  of  the  inner 
essence  of  our  activity.  They  are  one  as  water  and  steam 
are  one,  for  the  inner  essence  of  our  activity  may  be 
frozen  to  icy  despair,  or  ebullient  in  satisfaction,  or  dis- 
sipated in  satiety.  Therefore  we  may  be  glad  that  we  are 
capable  of  many  kinds  of  activity,  and  that. while  some 

'  Compare  review  by  present  writer  in  American  Journal  of 
Sociology,  xvii.  852,  of  Bernard's  The  Transition  to  an  Objective 
Standard  of  Social  Control. 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  113 

are  volatile  others  simmer  steadily.  The  steady  pleasures 
are  commonly  and  normally  mingled  with  desire.  The 
immediate  gratification  of  every  wish  is  far  from  being 
the  way  to  greatest  satisfaction. 

Satisfaction  as  here  used  does  not  mean  satiety,  it 
does  not  mean  absence  of  desire  and  striving.  An  equa- 
tion is  "satisfied"  by  the  values  that  fit  it;  a  capacity  is 
satisfied  by  the  successful  activity  for  which  it  is  adapted, 
for  our  capacities  are  capacities  for  action.  To  grant 
at  once  every  desire  is  to  inhibit  action  and  in  effect 
resembles  murder.  A  man  in  whom  a  dormant  capacity 
is  wholly  unawakened  has  no  desire  corresponding  to 
that  capacity,  but  neither  has  he  any  satisfaction  cor- 
responding to  it,  but  only  a  blank.  Fortunately  our  de- 
sires are  not  easily  quenched  in  satiety.  New  desires  can 
be  awakened,  and  beyond  desires  for  our  own  happiness 
desires  for  the  happiness  of  all  mankind  invite  our  zestful 
continuance  in  the  exercise  of  our  powers.  Lessing 
preferred  the  search  for  truth  to  truth  itself,  if  he  must 
choose  between  the  two,  because  the  search  was  the  sat- 
isfaction of  his  intellectual  powers.  That  is  their 
appropriate  functioning.  The  object  attained  by  suc- 
cessful functioning,  whatever  that  object  may  be,  has 
worth  only  if  that  object  itself  be  an  activity  or  a  means 
to  be  used  by  further  activity.  There  is  no  such  thing 
as  passive  experience;  all  experience  is  found  in  an 
active  response  to  stimulation.  And  satisfying  activity 
may  be  full  of  desire. 

If  satisfaction  is  not  the  same  as  absence  of  desire, 
neither  is  it  the  same  as  pleasure.  A  person  with  many 
unawakened  capacities  may  have  pleasures  as  the  birds 
do,  or  as  the  Eskimo  stuffing  himself  with  blubber,  but 


114  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

such  a  person  in  a  deep,  true  sense  is  unsatisfied,  even  if 
unconscious  of  the  lack.  The  capacities  which  are  to  be 
satisfied  are  still  slumbering.  The  partial  satisfaction 
he  already  enjoys  may  be  easy  and  the  fuller  satisfac- 
tion difficult,  and  the  awakening  of  additional  capacities 
be  followed  by  the  pain  of  unsuccessful  striving.  Even 
this  pain  is  better  than  the  former  pleasure  because  it  is 
nearer  to  a  fuller  satisfaction,  and  also  because  striving 
itself  contains  a  satisfaction.  It  is  life  and  joy.  Activities 
gain  in  value  by  their  alternation  and  harmony.  So  that 
the  measure  and  standard  of  our  aims  and  of  our  rational 
endeavors  is  no  single  pleasure,  nor  even  a  few  frag- 
ments of  life,  but  the  totality  of  all  the  values  which  we 
are  capable  of  experiencing,  each  in  its  due  proportion 
and  in  subordination  to  the  harmony  of  the  whole. 

It  is  essential  to  observe  that  the  word  ''activity"  as 
here  employed  does  not  refer  alone,  nor  even  primarily, 
to  the  actions  of  the  hands  or  of  any  muscles,  but  to  the 
functioning  of  the  psychophysical  organism  as  it  exists 
for  the  consciousness  of  the  actor.  The  student  in  his 
chair  or  the  poet  dreaming  beneath  the  linden  tree  may 
be  far  more  active  than  the  shoveler  in  the  ditch,  to  say 
nothing  of  the  squirrel  in  the  tree.  And  in  the  long  run, 
the  fuller,  more  varied,  more  purposeful,  and  better  pro- 
portioned the  activity  the  completer  the  satisfaction. 
Some  necessary  activity  is  painful.  Painful  activity  may 
be  necessary  to  the  maintenance  of  life  itself.  But  if  all 
activity  were  painful  life  would  not  be  worth  maintain- 
ing. Life  is  worth  maintaining  only  because  normal 
functioning  on  the  whole  is  satisfying. 

The  common  notion  of  a  temporal  sequence:  first  de- 
sire, second  action  prompted  by  desire,  third  resulting  sat- 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  115 

is  faction,  is  true  only  of  action  regarded  as  a  means  to 
an  end,  and  is  false  as  a  conception  of  the  ultimate  rela- 
tion between  desire,  activity  and  satisfaction.  Activity 
as  a  means  finds  its  reward  in  some  further  activity  (ex- 
perience). And  the  activity  which  is  an  end  in  itself, 
because  it  contains  satisfaction,  contains  also  desire.  A 
man  eating  has  both  desire  and  satisfaction.  Moreover, 
when  desire  is  greatest  satisfaction  is  greatest. 

Instead  of  regarding  desire  and  satisfaction  as  con- 
comitants and  correlates  men  have  regarded  them  as 
contradictories.  It  has  even  been  taught  (and  the  sociolo- 
gist Lester  F.  Ward  is  one  of  the  baldest  offenders)3  that 
desire  is  a  form  of  pain  which  diminishes  as  satisfaction 
increases,  and  that  satisfaction  is  the  gradual  cessation  of 
desire.  On  the  contrary,  desire  and  satisfaction  gener- 
ally increase  together  up  to  a  certain  point,  then  diminish 
or  cease  together  as  the  activity  is  finished  or  weariness 
and  desire  for  change  set  in.  Satisfaction  is  the  accom- 
paniment of  desire  and  is  measured  by  desire.  Desire 
can  indeed  exist  without  satisfaction,  because  the  activity 
may  be  inhibited.  It  is  then  that  desire  becomes  painful. 
But  satisfaction  cannot  exist  without  desire,  nor  without 
continuation  of  activity.  Instead  of  saying  with  Ward, 
"All  desire  is  unsatisfied  desire.  A  satisfied  desire  would 
no  longer  be  desire  at  all,"4  we  should  say :  Without  de- 
sire there  is  no  satisfaction.  Natural  desire  is  appetite. 
When  "desire  shall  fail"  man  may  as  well  "go  to  his  long 
home."  As  strands  of  scarlet  and  gold  woven  into  a  cord 
are  part  of  the  cord,  so  desire  and  satisfaction  are  ele- 
ments in  human  activity  as  it  exists  for  consciousness. 

8  Cf .  Pure  Sociology,  103  et  seq.    New  York,  1903. 
•Ibid.,  104. 


n6  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

Normal,  uninhibited,  and  unforced  activity  as  a  whole, 
and  satisfaction  and  desire  in  particular,  increase  or  di- 
minish together.  This  is  not  only  true  without  qualification 
of  all  ultimate  satisfaction,  that  is  of  human  experience 
regarded  as  being,  or  containing,  an  end  in  itself.  It  is 
even  true  of  much  of  that  activity  which  is  primarily  a 
means  to  some  future  activity.  For  this  mediating  ac- 
tivity as  such  often  contains  satisfaction,  which  like  other 
satisfaction,  is  in  proportion  to  desire;  such  desire  being 
not  for  the  continuance  of  the  mediating  activity,  but  for 
progress  toward  the  ultimate  activity. 

The  so-called  paradox  of  hedonism  is  that  progress 
increases  wants  as  fast  as  it  increases  satisfactions  and 
so  adds  nothing  to  happiness,  indeed  that  progress  may 
increase  wants  faster  than  satisfactions  and  therefore 
even  diminish  happiness.  This  famous  paradox  grows 
out  of  the  error  of  regarding  desires  and  satisfactions  as 
contradictories  instead  of  correlates,  supplemented  by 
confusion  of  desires  for  experience  or  activity  with  want 
of  material  things.  Progress  cannot  produce  a  new  kind 
of  desire,  for  the  appetites  are  all  determined  by  nature 
and  all  are  awakened  in  the  life  of  savages.  Progress 
can  do  two  things :  It  can  invent  new  forms  of  activity 
in  which  a  given  appetite  can  find  satisfaction,  and  it  can 
invent  new  material  conveniences  for  activity.  Progress 
in  science,  art,  literature,  play,  customs,  and  numerous 
kinds  of  interesting  work  vastly  multiplies  the  forms  of 
desirable  activity,  and  this  is  pure  gain  except  in  so  far 
as  it  depends  on  the  use  of  material  conveniences.  To 
diversify  the  activities  of  life  and  multiply  the  wants  for 
this  diversified  activity  is  to  enrich  life  and  to  increase  its 
satisfactions.  To  produce  new  conveniences  for  old  and 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  117 

new  activities  is  further  to  enrich  the  life  of  those  who 
possess  them  but  relatively  to  impoverish  those  who  can- 
not get  them.  To  increase  the  dependence  of  life  upon 
inaccessible  material  things  is  an  evil.  Yet  to  refuse  the 
material  conveniences  afforded  by  progress  would  be  folly. 
Diversification  of  desirable  activity  is  an  unmixed  bless- 
ing. Material  progress  is  a  mixed  blessing  so  long  as  the 
quantity  of  goods  produced  is  too  limited  and  the  distri- 
bution of  them  too  unequal. 

COMMODITIES  HAVE  No  INDEPENDENT  VALUE 

All  ultimate  value  is  in  experience  and  all  experience 
is  found  in  activity,  that  is  in  life.  Life  itself  alone  is 
inherently  good.  What  do  we  live  for?  "For  money," 
men  answer.  But  this  is  false;  no  rational  being  ever 
lived  for  money.  Money  has  no  value  in  itself.  All 
ultimate  value  is  in  activity,  in  experience,  in  life.  Money 
has  only  utility  and  value  in  exchange.  Utility  is  the  qual- 
ity of  a  means  by  which  good  experience  can  be  obtained. 
The  end  is  always  that  ultimate  value  which  inheres  in 
good  experience  alone.  The  end  lends  value  to  the  means. 
The  end  alone  has  value  in  itself. 

Robinson  Crusoe  carried  away  the  bits  of  old  iron, 
ropes,  and  pieces  of  sails  from  the  wrecked  ship  that 
served  him  so  well,  but  hesitated  to  take  the  Spanish 
gold.  With  iron  he  could  smite,  and  hew  and  toil  with 
zest,  and,  having  toiled,  could  eat  and  live  to  toil  again, 
but  gold  is  of  no  value  unless  it  can  yield  experience. 
What  would  be  the  value  to  its  possessor  of  a  million 
dollars  in  gold  if  he  were  compelled  to  keep  it?  It 
would  shine,  and  give  him  some  experience  of  beauty, 


n8  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

and  that  is  good.  If  he  could  show  it,  it  might  give 
him  a  silly  pride  and  pleasure  in  the  envy  of  others, 
which  would  be  an  experience.  Or  even  if  he  could 
not  show  it,  if  he  had  earned  and  saved  it  that 
achievement  might  make  him  proud,  it  might  fulfill 
his  ideal,  though  a  paltry  and  pitiful  ideal,  and  then  his 
pride  would  be  an  experience  and  as  such  would  have 
its  value.  But  gold,  even  a  million  pounds  of  it,  if  it 
is  not  the  means  of  an  experience,  has  no  value.  Gold, 
as  money,  has  value  only  because  one  can  get  rid  of  it 
for  something  that  one  really  wants. 

And  any  thing  for  which  one  can  exchange  it  has  no 
more  value  in  itself  than  the  gold  had.  Suppose  one 
exchange  a  dollar  of  his  gold  for  good  beef  and  potatoes. 
Even'  these  are  not  good  in  themselves,  and  if  he  has  no 
digestion  or  appetite,  if  he  is  seasick  or  has  just  dined, 
they  may  even  be  a  cause  of  vexation  and  disgust.  It 
is  the  conscious  satisfaction  that  one  gets  in  eating  with 
appetite,  and  the  other  experiences  possible  to  one  who  is 
sustained  by  food  that  have  value.  For  value  can  exist 
only  in  consciousness.  It  can  never  be  seen,  or  weighed, 
and  it  can  be  measured  only  by  comparison  with  some 
other  satisfaction  as  imponderable  as  itself. 

No  material  thing  is  good  in  itself,  or  good  in  any 
ultimate  sense;  it  is  only  good  for  something,  and  that 
something  for  which  it  is  good  is  always  a  conscious 
experience.  Conscious  experience  alone  is  good  in  itself. 

This  is  not  saying  that  what  is  only  good  for  some- 
thing is  of  trifling  account.  On  the  contrary,  since  expe- 
rience is  itself  so  good,  is  indeed  the  whole  and  only  good 
of  which  we  have  any  knowledge,  therefore  things,  just 
in  proportion  as  they  are  means  of  securing  good  expe- 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  119 

rience,  are  valuable  and  important.  But  their  value  or 
importance  is  wholly  secondary  and  derivative;  it 
depends  on  the  fact  that  they  are  good  for  experience; 
they  have  no  value  in  and  of  themselves.  Therefore 
things  can  never  be  the  ultimate  end  of  rational  endeavor, 
but  only  a  means  to  an  end. 

We  have  fallen  into  grave  error  in  discussing  "the 
economic  motive. "  There  is  no  specific  desire  that  should 
be  so  named.  Motives  of  every  kind  impel  men  to  eco- 
nomic industry.  It  is  one  form  of  this  error  to  speak  as 
if  the  desire  for  material  things,  like  food,  clothing,  and 
shelter,  were  the  economic  motive.  Does  the  millionaire 
return  daily  to  his  office  in  spite  of  his  physician's  warn- 
ing, until  at  length  nervous  prostration  stops  him,  be- 
cause driven  by  the  need  of  food  and  shelter?  The 
interest  on  the  bonds  in  his  safety  deposit  box,  if  he 
stopped  business  at  once,  would  feed,  clothe,  and  house 
a  retinue.  No,  he  goes  to  his  office  because  he  has 
schemes  on  foot  upon  the  accomplishment  of  which  his 
heart  is  set,  he  is  in  the  midst  of  activities  that  he  cannot 
bear  to  suspend,  his  sense  of  power  and  achievement  in 
these  activities  intoxicates  him,  his  determination  is  set 
upon  them,  and  it  is  like  suicide  to  unclamp  it,  and  he 
commits  suicide  in  obedience  to  it.  He  goes  back  to  his 
office  as  the  football  player  with  a  broken  rib  takes  his 
place  in  the  line.  One  thinks  as  little  of  his  food  and 
clothing  as  the  other.  American  men  make  money  as 
American  boys  play  marbles  in  spring,  baseball  in  sum- 
mer, and  football  in  autumn.  The  rich  man  toiling  for 
more  often  is  simply  trying  to  run  up  a  high  score  at 
the  national  game. 

The  motives  to  economic  work  are  as  various  as  the 


120  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

desires  of  man  and  as  manifold  as  man's  capacities  for 
desirable  experience.  A  man  may  engage  in  economic 
work  for  the  admiration  of  the  spectators,  his  fellow 
townsmen,  or  for  the  sense  of  power,  the  pleasure  of 
"workmanship,"  for  the  mere  sense  of  possession,  or  in 
order  that  he  may  pay  for  food  to  fill  his  stomach,  for 
books  to  feed  his  mind,  for  music  to  solace  his  soul,  for 
the  support  of  religion  which  affords  him  experiences 
now  and  hoped  for  experiences  in  eternity.  There  is  no 
human  experience  in  the  promotion  of  which  material 
things  can  be  used  as  a  means  that  does  not  afford  a 
motive  for  economic  work.  There  is  no  specific  economic 
motive  since  wealth  is  in  no  sense  an  end  in  itself;  but 
every  human  desire  is  an  economic  motive  in  so  far  as 
its  fulfillment  calls  for  the  use  of  material  things  as 
means.  It  is  true  man  seems  to  have  an  instinct  for 
hoarding,  like  the  squirrel  or  the  jay,  but  that  falls  im- 
measurably short  of  affording  the  propulsion  to  economic 
life. 

The  motive  that  impels  men  to  work  is  often  a  kind 
of  puree  of  all  desires,  a  generalized  notion  that  desirable 
experiences  are  possible  to  the  man  who  has  money.  The 
kind  of  desirable  experience  which  stands  out  oftenest  in 
his  imagination  as  obtainable  by  the  expenditure  of  what 
he  earns  depends  on  whether  he  is  a  gourmand,  a  liber- 
tine, a  sport,  a  lover  aspiring  to  marriage  and  a  home, 
an  amateur  of  art,  of  music,  or  of  books,  a  social  climber, 
a  political  aspirant,  a  religious  zealot,  or  what  not! 

Every  man  engaged  in  economic  work,  in  so  far  as  he 
is  impelled  by  any  rational  desire,  is  impelled  by  desire 
for  some  imponderable  psychic  thing,  that  is,  for  some 
experience  which  is  to  be  realized  by  himself  or  by  others. 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  121 

But  not  all  human  action  is  impelled  by  any  rational 
motive.  It  may  be  impelled  merely  by  one  or  other  of 
the  instinctive  propulsions,  somewhat  directed  by  social 
suggestions.  It  may  be  chiefly  a  matter  of  irrational 
imitation  of  the  conventional  mode  of  life. 

Thus,  the  man  who  makes  business  his  career  may  or 
may  not  be  guided  by  a  rational  aim.  He  may  be  so 
poorly  educated,  even  in  spite  of  diploma  and  degree, 
that  he  has  very  imperfectly  discovered  the  real  goods  of 
life,  is  not  familiarized  with,  or  adjusted  to,  life's  desir- 
able experiences,  does  not  recognize  and  appreciate  in 
their  due  proportion  the  values  that  are  attainable.  A 
man  who  has  engaged  in  business  imitatively,  because 
in  his  home  and  among  his  acquaintances  there  prevailed 
a  judgment,  by  which  talk  and  practice  were  guided,  to 
the  effect  that  business  was  the  natural  occupation  and 
goal  of  mankind,  may  be  without  any  rational  aim  in 
life.  A  whole  society,  engrossed  in  business,  may  be 
without  any  adequate  and  balanced  appreciation  of  life's 
aims,  of  the  real  values  of  life  which  are  to  be  attained 
or  lost,  and  its  members  may  rush  on  in  the  imitative 
pursuit  of  ''goods"  which  are  in  fact  good  only  as  means 
to  ends  which  they  have  never  properly  estimated  or 
understood. 

The  statement  that  a  society  may  lack  any  rationaj 
judgment  of  life's  aims  should  have  been  more  strongly 
put:  probably  there  never  was  a  society  in  which  the 
popular  group  judgments,  that  each  individual  inhaled 
with  his  breath,  embodied  a  rational  conception  of  the 
aims  of  life.  Moreover,  we  are  all  imitative,  and  only 
occasionally  anything  else.  Our  independence  consists 
mainly  in  clinging  to  one  set  of  suggested  ideas  and 


122  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

sentiments  in  face  of  those  suggested  by  another  source. 
Only  now  and  then  do  we  make  for  ourselves  estimates 
of  the  unseen  realities  of  experience.  Therefore,  in  a 
society  whose  members  in  general  judge  each  other  and 
themselves  by  the  number  of  marbles  in  their  pouches, 
or  the  number  of  scalps  at  their  belts,  or  the  number  of 
skulls  over  their  doors,  or  the  number  of  dollars  in  their 
bank  accounts,  even  one  who  does  not  play  that  partic- 
ular game  may  find  it  hard  not  to  estimate  his  own  suc- 
cess by  the  same  standard,  and  impossible  to  prevent  his 
neighbors  from  applying  that  standard  to  him  and  his 
work,  and  more  or  less  difficult  to  convince  them  that  he 
is  at  heart  pursuing  any  higher  aim. 

BUSINESS  AS  A  LIFE  WORK 

It  is  not  impossible  to  play  the  game  of  business 
without  allowing  it  to  supplant  worthier  purposes  and 
occupations,  and  our  work  may  have  play  interest  as 
activity  and  competition  while  at  the  same  time  having  a 
further  aim.  Business  should  be  not  merely  what  war 
once  was,  the  game  in  which  strong  men  wreak  them- 
selves and  compete  for  glory,  but  also  an  intelligent 
means  to  all  good  ends  and  a  method  of  social  service, 
entirely  worthy  of  the  exercise  of  great  powers. 

But  this  requires  that  success  in  business  be  measured 
by  production  as  well  as  by  acquisition.  Why  does  a 
man  run  a  shoe  factory?  To  make  money.  But  does 
it  occur  to  him  that  he  runs  it  to  make  shoes,  that  to 
make  shoes  is  an  indispensable  public  service  without 
which  misery,  disease,  deaths,  and  the  impeding  of  our 
whole  civilized  life  would  ensue,  and  that  after  forty 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  123 

years  of  making  excellent  shoes,  though  no  money  had 
been  accumulated,  he  would  have  achieved  a  success? 
Every  wage-earner  may  share  in  this  motive  and  this 
satisfaction.  That  manufacturer  may  well  have  had  it 
who,  when  a  visitor  remarked:  "After  twenty  years' 
experience  you  ought  to  be  able  to  make  a  prefty  good 
hammer,"  replied:  "No,  we  never  make  a  pretty  good 
hammer,  we  make  the  best  hammers  in  the  world."  The 
work  is  greater  than  the  pay. 

The  "captain  of  industry"  performs  a  service,  not 
only  in  the  output  which  he  places  on  the  market,  but  also 
in  that  he  organizes  the  lives  of  his  fellow  workers.  It 
may  or  it  may  not  be  that  he  is  abler  or  better  than  all 
of  those  working  under  him,  still  it  is  essential  that 
some  one  occupy  the  directive  position,  and  by  no  means 
all  can  do  so  with  success.  He  who  can  and  does  per- 
forms a  great  service  to  all  the  rest.  He  ought  to  rejoice 
in  this  also,  and  make  the  excellent  performance  of  this 
service  a  chief  part  of  his  conscious  aim.  Here,  as 
among  warriors,  noblesse  oblige,  power  is  opportunity 
and  responsibility.  An  employer  has  no  more  right  to 
consider  only  his  own  profit  in  the  business  in  which 
others  also  spend  their  days,  than  a  military  commander 
has  to  consider  only  his  own  glory  in  warfare  in  which 
others  risk  their  lives.  Laborers  and  employers  are 
necessary  to  each  other;  all  industry,  on  the  side  of  pro- 
duction, as  distinguished  from  acquisition,  is  cooper- 
ative in  fact,  even  if  it  is  not  cooperatively  managed. 
The  fact  that  production  has  called  for  unified  manage- 
ment does  not  nullify  the  rights  of  labor,  nor  make  the 
rights  of  management  equal  to  the  might  which  cen- 
tralization of  management  confers.  The  necessities  of 


124  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

organization  confer  upon  the  managers  of  industry  a 
power  which  does  not  inhere  in  them  as  individuals,  and 
which  they  have  no  right  to  exercise  in  their  own 
exclusive  interest. 

With  these  things  in  mind  the  business  man  will 
realize  that  he  may  attain  a  high  success  though  he 
accumulate  no  more  money  than  the  teacher  or  the 
scientist.  In  these  callings,  and  in  others  that  might  be 
named,  there  are  men  who  regard  the  money  that  they 
earn  as  a  by-product  of  their  work  and  not  its  main  pur- 
pose, a  necessary  by-product  without  which  the  work 
could  not  continue,  nor  their  own  proper  satisfactions 
be  secured,  but  still  not  the  main  product  of  the  work. 
These  men  would  not  leave  their  task  though  assured  of 
double  the  financial  returns  in  an  occupation  that  had  no 
aim  but  money.  The  business  man,  whose  sole  and  ulti- 
mate purpose  is  to  get  from  the  public  and  from  his 
laborers  the  biggest  profits,  exhibits  disregard  of  the  true 
aims  of  business,  namely,  the  uses  to  which  his  profits  or 
earnings  can  be  put,  the  serviceableness  of  his  product 
to  the  consumers,  and  the  usefulness  of  his  leadership 
in  the  organization  of  industry.  And,  further,  a  busi- 
ness which  yields  profits  without  furnishing  to  the  public 
any  utility  is  related  to  proper  business  as  piracy  is 
related  to  the  merchant  marine.  The  vikings  gloried 
in  their  piracy  and  sang  of  their  heroes  as  "seawolves." 
That  social  standard  has  changed.  Ours  will  change.  It 
is  a  foolish  conventionality  that  allows  a  man's  success 
to  be  measured  by  income  alone,  and  his  business  to  be 
treated  as  if  it  were  a  useless  game  with  no  purpose  but 
the  score  or  even  as  if  its  only  aim  were  his  own  satisfac- 
tion, with  no  regard  for  his  place  in  the  social  teamwork. 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  125 

Business  is  a  far  worthier  thing  than  that.  Its  aim 
should  be  the  production  of  utilities  not  less  than  ac- 
quisition. The  amount  and  character  of  the  product, 
the  level  of  wages  paid,  and  the  profits  must  all  be 
regarded,  in  order  to  have  a  just  or  truthful  measure  of 
business  success,  and  mere  profits,  when  excessive,  may 
even  be  an  evidence  of  failure. 

THE  MEANS  TO  LIFE 

There  are  two  kinds  of  means  which  may  be  employed 
in  promoting  the  objects  of  human  desire,  namely,  work 
and  wealth  (together  with  free  goods),  or  things  and 
men.  Of  material  commodities  as  means  we  have  al- 
ready spoken.  The  other  and  more  fundamental  means 
to  human  satisfactions  is  work,  or  more  broadly,  con- 
duct,  that  is,  activity  put  forth,  not  merely  for  the  sat- 
isfaction which  the  activity  itself  contains  as  an  experi- 
ence, but  also  in  part  or  wholly  as  a  means  or  condition 
of  some  further  experience. 

Concerning  work  as  it  exists  for  the  worker,  or  con- 
duct, it  is  to  be  noted  that  it  differs  from  material  goods 
in  this,  that  while  material  things  are  means  only  and 
never  ends,  or  as  phrased  above  are  only  good  -for  some- 
thing and  never  good  in  and  of  themselves,  on  the  other 
hand,  work,  or  conduct,  is  itself  a  human  experience  and 
therefore  may  be  good  in  itself  as  well  as  good  for  some- 
thing. However,  the  words  good  or  bad  as  applied  to 
work,  or  conduct,  as  such,  just  as  when  applied  to  any 
other  means,  have  not  the  same  signification  as  when 
applied  to  experience  regarded  as  an  end  in  itself.  Good 
conduct,  as  such,  is  only  relatively  good,  that  is,  good  as 


126  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

a  means  to  some  ulterior  experience,  and  it  may  at  the 
same  time  be  either  good  and  desirable  or  hard  and  ba4 
in  itself.  Good  conduct  is  that  which,  even  if  hard  and 
bad  in  itself,  yet  on  the  whole  and  in  the  long  run,  serves 
to  increase  the  net  sum  of  good  experience.  Colloquially 
"good  conduct"  is  that  which  conforms  to  prevalent  senti- 
ment. 

All  estimation  of  human  values,  for  the  purposes  of 
ethics,  or  education,  or  any  practical  endeavor  remains 
more  or  less  misguided  unless  it  distinguishes  clearly 
between  these  two  aspects  of  human  activity,  namely,  its 
aspect  as  experience,  which  is  good  or  bad  in  itself,  and 
its  aspect  as  conduct  which  is  a  means  to  further  expe- 
rience either  good  or  bad.  Activity  which  is  judged 
good  as  conduct  may  be  bad  as  experience,  and  activity 
which  is  good  as  experience  may  be  bad  as  conduct. 
Experience,  not  conduct,  is  the  only  ultimate  good.  The 
net  total  and  quality  of  experience  contained  in  and  pro- 
duced by  conduct  is  the  standard  by  which  to  judge 
whether  the  conduct  is  good  or  bad.  Scientific  ethics 
must  arrive  at  two  types  of  judgments :  First,  judgments 
of  value;  second,  and  dependent  on  the  former,  judg- 
ments of  conduct.  The  former  recognizes  the  good,  the 
latter  recognizes  the  right.  Rightness  is  the  secondary 
and  derivative  form  of  goodness. 

Man,  in  all  his  work  has,  or  is,  experience.  To  enslave 
or  exploit  man  is  to  treat  him  as  if  he  were  capable  only 
of  work  or  conduct  and  not  of  experience.  Herein  lies 
the  necessity  of  Kant' s  principle  of  ethics  that  "man  is 
never  to  be  treated  as  if  he  were  a  means  only,  but  always 
as  being  an  end  in  himself."  The  distinction  between 
land  and  capital  is,  for  our  purpose,  relatively  unimpor- 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  127 

tant,  but  the  division  between  work  and  things  is  funda- 
mental. Work  is  never  a  mere  commodity,  it  is  an  expe- 
rience. It  is  always  a  part  of  life,  which  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  an  end  in  itself.  All  others  means  are  things. 

As  things  may  be  used  to  produce  things,  so  work  may 
be  applied  to  eliciting  and  adapting  the  work  of  others. 
Work  of  that  sort  is  organizing  work,  method  in  such 
work  is  the  art  of  organization,  and  capacity  for  such 
work  is  organizing  or  administrative  ability.  Organi- 
zation on  the  greatest  scale  is  politics  or  government. 

Each  kind  of  means  may  be  used  in  securing  the  other, 
that  is,  work  in  securing  commodities  or  commodities 
in  securing  work.  Commodities  so  used  are  commonly 
called  "wages"  or  salaries.  Wages  include  two  elements 
which  it  is  highly  important  to  distinguish :  necessary,  or 
compulsory,  or  what  at  times  deserve  to  be  called  exploit- 
ive  wages  without  the  payment  of  which  the  cooper- 
ation of  the  laborers  could  not  be  secured ;  and  differential 
wages,  that  is,  a  return  over  and  above  necessary  wages 
yet  paid  out  of  the  product  of  the  labor  of  the  wage- 
earners.  There  is  no  economic  law  to  compel  the  pay- 
ment of  differential  wages.  It  depends  upon  the  volun- 
tary action  of  the  manager,  in  his  capacity  as  the  agent 
of  secondary  distribution,  that  is,  distribution  of  the 
proceeds  resulting  from  the  sale  of  output  among  the 
participants  in  the  production  of  output,  or  upon  bar- 
gaining power  obtained  by  the  laborers  through  organi- 
zation, or  upon  some  form  of  external  compulsion  exer- 
cised upon  the  employer  as  agent  of  secondary  distri- 
bution. There  is  no  ethical  claim  to  property  which  is 
clearer  than  the  claim  of  the  laborer  to  differential  wages, 
when  the  productivity  of  industry  is  such  as  to  yield  more 


128  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

than  the  necessary  wages,  interest,  rent,  wages  of  super- 
intendence and  replacement  of  capital,  the  amounts  of 
all  five  of  which  are  approximately  determined  by  eco- 
nomic laws.  The  manager  is  as  justly  entitled  to  a  share 
in  differential  wages  as  any  laborer.  The  salaries  of 
hired  managers  often  include  a  large  differential  above 
their  necessary  wages.  Favoritism  to  a  hired  manager 
which  gives  him  differential  wages  while  denying  them 
to  other  laborers  is  unjust.  Not  every  industry  is  pro- 
ductive enough  to  yield  any  differential  wages.  If  dis- 
tribution were  just,  the  interest  of  the  laborer  in  the 
efficiency  of  management  and  in  the  productivity  of  all 
the  labor  employed  would  be  as  great  proportionally  as 
the  interest  of  the  manager  himself.5 

THE  FIVE  ULTIMATE  VALUES 

We  have  defined  right  conduct  as  that  which 
increases  the  net  sum  of  good  human  experience.  But 
while  we  can  define  the  goodness,  or  more  precisely  the 
Tightness,  of  conduct  by  reference  to  its  results,  we  cannot 
define  that  result  by  reference  to  anything  beyond  itself. 
The  goodness  of  experience  is  the  final  good,  and  being 
ultimate  can  no  more  be  defined  than  red  or  the  sound 
of  a  cornet  can  be  defined.  It  needs  no  definition,  for, 
like  those  sensations,  it  is  vividly  known  by  direct  expe- 
rience without  the  aid  of  description.  Each  of  us  has 
had  enough  experience  that  for  consciousness  was  good 
and  enough  that  for  consciousness  was  bad  to  know  what 

*  Compare  the  statement  of  the  organic  theory  of  distribution  set 
forth  in  a  paper  by  the  present  writer,  entitled  "The  Social  Control 
of  the  Acquisition  of  Wealth,"  and  published  in  The  American 
Economic  Review  Supplement,  viii,  no.  i,  194,  and  in  The  Pro- 
ceedings of  the  American  Sociological  Society,  xii.,  in. 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  129 

good  and  bad  are,  and  to  find  inducement  or  deterrence 
in  the  words  of  others  who  tell  us  of  experiences  which 
they  have  found  good  or  bad.  Activities,  that  is,  experi- 
ences, which  for  consciousness  are  good  constitute  the 
only  conceivable  ultimate  good. 

As  there  are  two  great  means  of  human  satisfaction, 
labor  and  material  goods,  so  also  there  are  five  kinds  of 
desire  and  satisfaction  to  which  those  means  can  minis- 
ter, that  can  be  realized  in  human  experience,  and  that 
in  their  proper  union  and  harmony  constitute  the  only 
ultimate  good  of  life. 

The  first  class  of  good  human  experiences  is  physical 
and  is  represented  by  the  comfort  of  warmth  and  ease, 
the  exhilaration  of  muscular  movement,  and  the  grati- 
fication of  bodily  appetites. 

All  our  experience  has  a  physical  basis,  but  in  experi- 
ence of  this  first  kind  a  material  excitant  is  usually 
obvious  and  the  physiological  character  of  the  experience 
is  also  obvious,  instead  of  being  concealed  in  the  minute 
and  hidden  functionings  of  the  brain  and  nerves  and 
interior  organs.  Here,  as  well  as  anywhere,  that  which 
we  pronounce  good  is  an  experience  existing  in  con- 
sciousness, a  psychic  activity,  of  which  the  physical  is 
only  a  means  or  condition.6  But  it  is  bound  up  with 
sensation,  that  is,  psychic  activity  of  the  least  evolved  and 
differentiated  sort,  and  may  contain  little  or  even  none 
at  all  of  the  more  evolved  psychic  elements  which  are 
found  in  other  good  experiences;  it  does  not  necessarily 
rise  above  mere  sensation  even  so  far  as  to  reach  per- 
ception. 

"Unless  we  regard  the  physical  and  the  psychic  as  aspects  of  the 
same  functioning.    Compare  pages  317  and  334. 


130  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

It  is  customary  to  cry  down  these  physical  pleasures 
and  to  call  them  low  and  coarse.  This  is  in  part  because 
they  do  engage  those  powers  of  man  which  are  less 
evolved,  and  are  shared  by  lower  orders  of  animals.  The 
sensuous  pleasures  are,  however,  a  real  good  by  no  means 
to  be  despised,  and  they  are  ennobled  in  man  when  with 
the  sensuous  experiences  there  is  mingled  the  exercise  of 
man's  other  and  higher  powers,  and  when  there  is  allowed 
nothing  in  the  former  which  violates  the  latter  or  pre- 
vents the  realization  of  the  whole  sphere  of  good  human 
possibilities. 

A  second  reason  for  the  general  practice  of  decrying 
the  physical  pleasures,  a  practice  much  declined  since  the 
days  of  our  too  austere  forefathers,  is  the  fact  that  the 
human  individual  is  far  more  certain  to  be  a  craving 
animal  than  to  be  an  aspiring  soul.7  The  powers  later 
evolved  often  compete  precariously  for  their  due  place 
in  his  attention  with  the  basal  beast  in  him,  and  need  to 
have  on  their  side  all  the  reinforcement  of  social  sug- 
gestion, lest  they  be  crowded  out  and  overwhelmed  and 
man  remain  a  beast.  And  civilized  man  cannot  be  a  good 
beast,  he  must  either  be  far  more  and  better  than  a  mere 
beast  or  else  fail  miserably. 

Some  say  that  a  third  reason  for  decrying  physical 
pleasures  is  that  the  desire  for  them  gives  brutal  inten- 
sity to  economic  competition.  But  physical  gratifications 
are  not  extremely  expensive  until  they  become  esthetic. 
And  it  is  a  false  standard  of  social  and  personal  success 
far  more  than  desire  for  physical  gratification  that  over- 
stimulates  the  pursuit  of  wealth. 

f  The  meaning  attached  to  this  word  is  a  human  individual  con- 
sidered with  respect  to  all  his  possibilities  of  consciousness. 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  131 

Physical  pleasures  are  by  no  means  to  be  omitted  from 
an  enumeration  of  the  classes  into  which  the  real  goods 
of  human  experience  are  divided,  but  they  are  coupled 
with  an  awful  capacity  for  physical  pain. 

Even  the  higher  animals  below  man  show  abundant 
evidence  of  enjoying  other  satisfactions  than  those  which 
have  just  been  defined  as  "physical."  And  man  is  utterly 
unfitted  to  live  in  a  "pleasure  economy"  that  takes  into 
consideration  only  gratifications  of  this  class.  Under  a 
"pain  economy"  where  his  activities  are  mostly  directed 
against  discomfort,  and  hunger,  and  bodily  peril,  man 
may  do  fairly  well  with  such  heed  to  higher  interests  as 
instinct  prompts.  He  may  secure  the  coarse  and  powerful 
physical  gratifications  at  their  strongest,  and  in  war 
against  want  and  pain  may  feel  the  zest  of  bodily  and 
mental  activity.  He  will  taste  other  pleasures  also,  he  may 
exult  in  personal  prowess  and  the  admiration  of  his  fel- 
lows, practice  by  force  of  physical  necessity  and  social 
pressure  the  simpler  virtues,  and  feel  an  untaught  glad- 
ness in  the  beauty  of  field  and  sky.  But  let  him  once 
triumph  over  nature,  let  him  become  rich  and  let  the 
attainment  of  physical  pleasure  become  easy,  and  its  pur- 
suit yields  him  neither  zest  in  action  nor  pride  and  honor 
in  achievement,  and  even  physical  pleasure,  in  spite  of 
luxury  and  artful  stimulation,  weakens  and  palls,  and  ^is 
body  itself,  or  that  of  his  offspring,  if  he  have  any,  sinks 
in  decay.  Man,  when  once  he  becomes  well-to-:' j,  must 
care  for  other  than  bodily  satisfactions.  When  the  attain- 
ment of  satisfaction,  not  the  avoidance  of  pain,  becomes 
his  predominating  motive,  he  must  have  discovered  other 
satisfactions  than  those  of  ease  and  appetite,  and  always 
he  must  have  a  goal  that  evokes  his  powers,  for  life  is 


132  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

action,  and  there  is  no  passivity  for  man  but  death,  and 
though  the  death  may  be  slow,  it  is  pain. 

Second  may  be  named  the  esthetic  pleasures.  The 
experience  of  beauty  has  an  immense  range  of  variety. 
At  one  time  its  chief  character  is  tenderness,  at  another 
it  is  exaltation,  yet  it  is  one  distinct  class  of  experiences 
which  we  know  in  our  own  consciousness,  and  the  pres- 
ence of  which  we  evince  to  others,  and  which  we  with 
conscious  purpose  evoke  in  others. 

Sensuous  beauty,  the  pleasure  in  color,  line,  and  sound 
for  their  own  sake,  are  as  dependent  upon  material 
excitants,  and  nearly,  if  not  quite,  as  divorced  from 
developed  intellectual  elements  playing  an  essential  part 
in  the  same  experience,  as  are  the  "physical"  gratifi- 
cations. They  are  physiological  responses  as  truly  as  the 
pleasure  in  food.  How  far  we  share  them  with  the 
animals  it  is  not  our  present  province  to  discuss,  but 
they  are  the  possession  of  untaught  men,  though  in  vary- 
ing degrees  and  subject  to  increase  by  the  communica- 
tion of  esthetic  judgments,  and  by  the  sympathetic  radi- 
ation of  esthetic  feeling. 

The  beauty  of  nature  affords  perhaps  the  most  uni- 
versal of  esthetic  experiences,  both  because  the  beauty  of 
nature  is  everywhere,  at  least  in  the  sky,  and  because 
some  responsiveness  to  nature's  beauty  is  common  to 
practically  all  men.  Not  all  can  feel  the  beauty  of  a 
symphony  or  a  sonnet,  but  few,  if  any,  among  normal 
human  beings,  are  insensible  to  the  beauty  of  dawn  and 
sunset  and  the  stars.  Of  this  the  folklore  of  savages 
does  not  lack  evidence.  Wordsworth  did  not  "reveal" 
the  beauty  of  flowers.  Little  children  of  the  city  slums 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  133 

feel  it  as  well  as  he,  though  they  cannot  express  it  in 
verse,  and  South  Sea  savages  twine  flowers  in  their  hair. 
At  the  same  time  no  student  of  comparative  sociology 
can  overlook  the  power  of  social  radiation  to  heighten 
esthetic  experiences  even  in  the  appreciation  of  nature, 
and  to  create  artificial  and  fantastic  tastes,  through  the 
prestige  of  the  esthetic  mentor  and  the  influence  of  the 
mass  of  society  over  the  likes  and  dislikes  of  its  indi- 
vidual members. 

In  civilized  society,  except  among  the  wretched  class, 
the  beauty  of  the  home  stands  next  to  the  beauty  of 
nature.  It  is  largely  due  to  a  sweet  familiarity,  the 
positive,  of  which  homesickness  is  the  negative,  the  same 
principle  which  enhances  the  beauty  of  a  familiar  quota- 
tion or  favorite  song.  Visible  adaptation  to  cherished 
human  uses  is  one  principle  of  beauty,  and  it  is  height- 
ened by  evidences  of  actual  use.  The  unceasing  labor 
that  preserves  the  cleanliness  and  order  of  the  home  is 
essentially  a  work  of  art,  done  for  beauty's  sake  as  truly 
as  the  practice  of  any  other  art,  and  in  the  aggregate 
contributing  to  the  enjoyment  of  beauty  at  least  as  much 
as  any  other  art.  At  the  same  time  every  other  art  com- 
bines with  it  to  enhance  the  beauty  of  the  home,  as  all 
arts  combine  with  religion  to  reenforce  its  power. 

The  designer  of  artistic  manufactured  goods  renders 
an  inestimable  social  service.  Perhaps  the  arts  that  have 
at  present  in  America  the  greatest  opportunity  for  social 
service  are  those  of  the  architect,  town-planner,  and  land- 
scape designer.  Hamlets  and  villages  will  not  always 
remain  hideous  but  will  become  picturesque  and  beauti- 
ful. Here  is  a  field  for  enthusiasm  and  devotion  to  one's 
country  "equal  to  that  which  would  be  aroused  by  a  great 


134  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

war."  And  those  who  lead  the  American  people  to  a 
due  sense  of  their  opportunity  in  this  direction,  and  to 
efficient  cooperation  in  meeting  it  will  exercise  a  noble 
generalship. 

The  beauty  or  lack  of  beauty  of  the  human  person  and 
personality  are  inextricably  mingled,  now  reen  forcing, 
now  counteracting  each  other,  and  beauty  of  the  one  sort 
triumphing  over  ugliness  of  the  other.  Beauty  of  per- 
sonality, or  moral  beauty,  is  everywhere  to  be  seen,  even 
though  never  perfect — the  beauty  of  an  unspoiled  child, 
of  a  man  as  sturdy  in  character  and  intelligence  as  in 
body,  of  a  woman  worthy  of  that  name,  or  of  serene, 
magnanimous,  and  dignified  old  age. 

It  is  likely  to  be  the  case  that  we  justly  appraise  only 
our  brief  or  unusual  pleasures,  which  give  us  a  shock  of 
contrast,  and  fail  to  appreciate  or  even  to  name  those 
which  give  light  and  warmth  and  color  to  the  successive 
hours  of  our  common  days,  until  they  are  cut  off  and  we 
find  how  cold  and  dark  it  would  be  without  them.  If 
it  were  always  day  we  should  have  the  cheer  of  the 
light,  but  should  take  it  for  granted,  and  our  experience 
would  scarcely  inform  us  that  it  is  the  light  that  gives 
us.  this  cheer.  And  likewise,  beauty  in  nature,  in  our 
homes,  in  people,  and  wherever  we  find  it  renders  a 
subtle  ministration  seldom  duly  valued. 

Of  the  esthetic  experiences  which  are  ministered  to  by 
the  arts  usually  called  fine,  one  may  remark  with  satis- 
faction that  the  American  people  have  begun  to  admit 
that  the  promotion  of  these  values  is  work  worthy  of  real 
men  having  the  manliest  gifts;  though  it  is  still  to  be 
feared  that  a  Michelangelo,  or  Leonardo,  or  Beethoven 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  135 

born   among   us   would   be   in   danger   of   going   into 
business. 

The  third  great  class  of  values  which  life  contains  is 
made  up  of  satisfactions  that  accompany  the  active  exer- 
cise of  the  intellectual  powers,  the  satisfaction  of  interest, 
the  joy  of  comprehension,  the  zest  of  mental  application 
rewarded  by  perceptions  and  insights.  This  is  the  dis- 
tinctive delight  of  the  reader,  though  in  his  case  it  is 
complicated  with  nearly  every  other  kind  of  pleasure,  as 
he  imagines  scenes  and  experiences  portrayed  and  enters 
into  comradeship  with  the  author  and  his  characters. 
The  traveler  also  is  lured  on  by  the  pleasures  of  curiosity. 
The  amateur  scientist  partakes  of  intellectual  pleasure, 
he  reads  nature's  own  book,  and  looks  upon  all  living 
things,  material  events,  and  even  the  dead  but  storied 
rocks,  with  eyes  that  have  been  touched  and  opened. 
And  the  professional  scientist  is  in  the  truest  sense  no 
less  an  amateur.  The  mind  is  only  a  little  less  hungry 
than  the  stomach  and  its  gratification  is  a  pleasure,  often 
keener  than  that  derived  from  food,  and  capable  of  being 
indefinitely  more  prolonged.  Even  those  of  us  who  are 
somewhat  dull  and  ignorant,  find  wherever  we  go,  some- 
thing about  which  to  question  and  speculate  and  wonder, 
and  feed  our  hungry  wits;  it  may  be  the  interpretation 
of  our  neighbors'  movements,  the  study  of  a  stranger's 
physiognomy  and  dress,  judging  the  contents  of  a  pack- 
age by  the  evidence  afforded  by  its  outward  appearance, 
or  solving  the  puzzles  in  the  weekly  paper.  The  pathos 
of  ignorance  is  that  the  ravenous  mind  feeds  upon  husks 
instead  of  bread.  Education  makes  life  a  feast.  In  our 
day  some  look  upon  education  merely  or  chiefly  as  a 


136  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

means  of  making  money — a  means  to  a  means.  It  is 
that,  but  far  *nore  it  is  an  introduction  to  life's  values, 
which  without  it  would  be  largely  missed,  not  intellectual 
values  only  but  all  those  that  escape  the  mere  animal 
man.  It  is  entering  upon  our  heritage  as  sons  of  man 
and  heirs  of  the  ages. 

Fourth  among  life's  values  are  the  social  experiences, 
experiences  of  a  peculiar  character  and  flavor,  which  are 
conditioned  by  our  thoughts  of  our  associates.  To  be 
wholly  satisfying  our  thoughts  of  our  associates  must 
include  thoughts  of  their  thoughts  or  feelings  about  us. 
Imagine,  if  one  can,  a  human  being  never  noticed  by 
any  other  human  being,  never  receiving  an  answering 
smile,  or  greeting  word  or  gesture,  to  show  that  his 
presence  was  observed,  who,  though  alone  or  in  the 
crowd,  was  equally  nonexistent  for  his  kind,  as  if  forever 
wearing  the  garment  of  invisibility.  Absolute  isola- 
tion, if  prolonged,  causes  hunger  for  this  natural  satis- 
faction which  may  become  unbearable  and  induce  in- 
sanity. Yet  even  in  isolation  we  may  have  some  social 
pleasures,  for  we  are  not  wholly  deprived  of  thoughts 
about  associates,  but  only  of  the  new  and  vivid  ones 
which  their  presence  would  occasion.  To  pass  from  a 
community  where  one  has  been  surrounded  by  friends 
and  the  marks  of  respect  and  esteem,  to  dwell  in  the 
midst  of  strangers,  is  like  falling  from  a  sunny  shore 
into  the  North  Atlantic.  And  what  shall  be  said  of  one 
who  suddenly  finds  the  cordiality  of  friends  diminished, 
silence,  averted  looks,  suspicion,  contempt?  We  expand 
under  the  favor  of  our  associates  like  flowers  in 
the  sun;  joy  blooms  and  all  our  powers  bear  fruit; 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  137 

but  their  indifference  blights  and  withers  us  like  a  frost. 

What  is  so  precious  as  the  friendship  of  one  comrade 
whom  we  like,  whose  judgment  we  trust,  who  knows  us 
thoroughly  and  likes,  approves,  and  trusts  us,  what  else 
is  the  occasion  of  so  deep  a  comfort  and  joy,  and  what 
advantage  is  there  in  exchange  for  which  we  could  afford 
to  lose  the  trust  of  such  a  friend!  Fame  is  the  acquaint- 
ance, or  esteem,  or  friendship,  of  a  great  number.  As 
cold  esteem  it  may  be  of  the  highest;  as  friendship  it  is 
likely  to  be  thinly  diluted. 

Our  personality  is  largely  the  fruit  of  social  contacts. 
Conscious  life  is  adjustment  to  a  psychic  milieu  fur- 
nished by  our  kind,  as  animal  life  is  adjustment  to  a 
physical  environment  which  meets  its  needs;  and  it  is 
scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  our  higher  and  more  con- 
stant satisfaction  depends  upon  social  relations  as  com- 
pletely as  animal  pleasure  depends  upon  material  con- 
ditions. It  is  not  impossible  that  the  desire  to  love  and 
to  be  loved,  to  esteem  and  to  be  esteemed,  to  be  thought 
successful  and  admirable,  and  the  corresponding  satis- 
factions, are  the  heartfelt  side  of  more  human  striving 
and  realization  than  desires  for  physical  or  intellectual 
or  esthetic  pleasures,  perhaps  more  than  all  these  com- 
bined. Even  the  outcast  criminal  boasts  to  his  pals  of 
his  success  in  crime,  and  the  tramp  prizes  his  reputation 
among  tramps  as  a  successful  beggar.  Physical  desires 
are  universal  and  urgent,  but  they  are  soon  satisfied  and 
even  satiated,  but  not  so  the  appetite  for  social  satis- 
faction. Whatever  achievement  friends  and  associates 
reward  with  approval  and  honor  men  will  strive  for. 
By  its  approvals  society  can  turn  its  members  to  follow 
with  eager  feet  any  path  it  may  select,  and  for  this 


138  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

reward  it  may  have  any  service  up  to  the  very  limit  of 
human  possibility.  That  is  a  wise  society  in  which  the 
mass  knows  what  to  frown  upon  and  what  to  honor — 
none  yet  has  been  so  wise  as  that. 

The  fifth  form  of  value  realized  in  experience  is  that 
which  accompanies  one's  thought  of  himself.  This  we 
may  call  the  personal  satisfaction,  for  it  is  the  sense  of 
one's  own  personality.  It  has  its  roots  in  social  expe- 
rience. We  who  pass  judgments  upon  our  associates  are 
compelled  by  the  logical  consistency  of  the  human  mind 
more  or  less  to  judge  ourselves  by  similar  standards. 
Having  called  another  a  villain  for  a  certain  act,  straight- 
way to  view  the  same  act  in  oneself  is  likely  to  produce 
a  twinge,  and  having  called  another  glorious  for  a  certain 
act,  one  aspires  to  like  action  and  commends  himself  if 
he  perform  it.  We  all  are  born  into  a  society  in  which 
social  interaction  has  equipped  each  adult  with  developed 
standards,  both  intellectual  and  emotional,  which  judge 
us  and  teach  us  to  judge  ourselves  and  others. 

We  find  it  hard  or  impossible  to  think  well  of  our- 
selves when  all  others  think  ill  of  us.  But  we  live  in 
many  groups,  the  home,  the  school,  the  shop,  the  news- 
paper world;  each  has  its  standards.  The  vicious  gang, 
the  boarding-house  company,  a  single  powerful  person- 
ality representative  of  another  circle  than  any  in  which 
we  usually  move,  the  characters  in  a  storybook — we  are 
impressed  by  the  standards  and  sentiments  of  each.  And 
concerning  each  we  often  ask  hal f -consciously :  What 
would  these  think  of  me?  What  would  my  sweetheart 
think?  What  would  my  boy  think  if  he  should  see  that 
in  his  father?  What  would  my  dead  mother  think, 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  139 

whose  standards  differed  from  those  of  my  present  asso- 
ciates? What  would  God  think?  And  since  the  social 
contacts  from  which  we  derive  our  standards  of  self- 
judgment  are  so  numerous  and  so  diverse  as  to  impose 
on  us  opposite  requirements,  we  cannot  be  simultaneously 
governed  by  them  all,  but  are  compelled  at  any  given 
moment  to  select  some  one  course  of  conduct,  making  it 
our  way,  and  its  standard  of  judgment  our  standard  of 
self -judgment. 

The  personal  ideal  may  be  shifting  and  vague  at 
points,  wanting  in  standards  applicable  to  some  situa- 
tions, and  in  part  irrational  and  absurd;  but  in  no  indi- 
vidual who  is  the  product  of  any  normal  social  life,  how- 
ever primitive,  is  it  absent,  nor  are  its  promptings  at 
all  points  lacking  in  definiteness  and  urgency.  I  do  not 
mean  that  every  human  individual,  even  in  the  most 
advanced  society,  has  consciously  formed  and  chosen  a 
personal  ideal.  One's  standard  of  self-judgment  may  be 
a  mere  natural  product,  the  result  of  reaction  between 
inborn  tendencies  and  external  suggestions.  But  if  the 
environment  has  been  fortunate  and  the  education  wisely 
conducted,  the  personal  ideal  represents  a  working  ad- 
justment between  the  various  interests  of  the  individual 
and  the  claims  of  society  upon  him,  as  they  are  under- 
stood by  the  group  that  has  chiefly  influenced  him,  per- 
haps somewhat  modified  by  his  own  reactions. 

What  I  am  calling  the  personal  ideal  includes  not  only 
moral  requirements  but  also  ambitions  and  all  standards 
of  personal  success  and  worth.  It  is  the  concrete  concept 
of  a  satisfactory  self.  It  is  satisfied  whenever  the  indi- 
vidual does  what  he  meant  to  do  or  is  what  he  fully 
meant  to  be.  The  individual  measures  himself  by  it 


140  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

when  he  dresses  and  looks  in  the  mirror,  when  he  has 
the  feel  of  himself  in  company,  when  he  plays  a  game  at 
which  he  has  some  pretensions  to  skill,  when  he  reviews 
a  speech  that  he  has  made  or  a  bargain  that  he  has 
driven.  His  self-thought,  if  tolerably  definite  and  stable, 
is  the  most  central  and  determining  thing  in  his  charac- 
ter. It  dominates  his  deliberate  choices,  and  even  in  the 
busy  hours  when  absorption  in  objective  aims  drives  it 
below  the  threshold  of  consciousness,  if  he  lives  an 
organized  life,  it  still  is  determining  the  direction  and 
force  of  his  activity. 

We  differ  greatly  as  to  the  honesty  with  which  we 
select  our  self -thought  on  its  merits,  and  the  deliberation 
and  constancy  with  which  we  cherish  any  chosen  stand- 
ard. This  honesty  and  constancy,  or  the  lack  of  them, 
mark  the  path  of  our  ascent  or  our  descent. 

We  tend  to  cherish  a  self -thought  that  does  not  make 
us  too  uncomfortable  by  its  exactions.  Many  experiment 
with  ideals  that  prove  too  high  for  comfort.  When  their 
personal  reaction  upon  some  situation  disagrees  with 
their  ideal,  they  say  to  themselves  that  under  the  peculiar 
circumstances  under  which  they  acted  the  ideal  was  not 
binding,  or  else  that  the  ideal  was  impracticable  anyway 
for  real  life  as  conditions  now  are,  and  comfort  them- 
selves with  the  opinion  that  most  persons  would  have 
done  no  better  than  they.  Thus,  they  try,  with  greater 
or  less  success,  to  make  themselves  comfortable  with  the 
selves  they  are,  instead  of  holding  their  attention  on  the 
better  selves  they  ought  to  be.  Others  are  too  honest 
for  this,  and  here  is  the  supreme  test  of  honesty.  They 
admit  the  real  character  of  their  own  act,  make  no 
apology  for  it  and  still  cling  to  their  ideal.  This  honest 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  141 

and  valiant  clinging  to  an  ideal  too  high  for  easy  attain- 
ment is  the  virtue  of  humility.  Humility  is  not  cringing. 
Only  a  soul  of  the  toughest  fiber  can  keep  his  humility 
in  this  true  sense.  The  pain  he  suffers  at  the  discovery 
of  his  own  inadequacy,  the  revulsion  against  the  hated 
act,  and  the  desperate  clutching  of  the  standard  of  his 
resolve,  are  repentance,  which  alone  enables  such  a  soul 
to  forgive  himself.  And  such  repentance  resets  his  or- 
ganic being  with  new  tensions,  so  that  in  spite  of  the 
power  of  habit,  strengthened  by  the  last  repetition,  the 
natural  consequence  may  be  that  he  is  less  likely  than 
before  his  fall  to  repeat  the  act  repented  of,  and  though 
habit  and  hereditary  tendency  combine  against  him  he 
may  at  length  conquer,  and  fulfill  his  ideal.  For  the  key 
to  the  nature  of  man's  psychophysical  organism  is  its 
adaptation  to  function  under  the  stimulation  of  ideas. 
To  have  his  idea  of  the  self  which  his  whole  nature, 
when  freed  from  clamorous  solicitations  of  circum- 
stance, approves,  clearly  enough  and  often  enough  be- 
fore his  mind  so  that  it  gives  the  set  to  his  habitual 
conscious,  and  even  subconscious,  tensions,  is  to  approach 
that  ideal  as  nearly  as  his  nature  allows.  And  the  extent 
to  which  man  can  respond  to  an  idea,  and  be  transformed 
into  its  fulfillment,  is  the  supreme  miracle  of  nature. 

But  this  implies  the  deliberate  constancy  as  well  as 
the  honesty,  which  are  the  central  soundness  of  per- 
sonality. 

Constancy  is  wholly  a  matter  of  attention.  The  dis- 
honest mind  winces  from  the  facts,  its  attention  fades 
away  from  unwelcome  realities.  All  life  is  determined 
by  attention;  and  the  strong  man  who  knows  that  this 
is  so  will  see  to  it  that  the  inspiring  summoning  thoughts 


142  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

are  daily  brought  before  the  mind.  The  man  who  does 
not  pause  in  the  morning  of  every  day,  or  at  other  stated 
times,  to  call  to  mind  his  chosen  thoughts  and  aims,  and 
who  does  not  seek  the  environment  that  presents  them 
to  consciousness,  but  lets  his  attention  be  filled  with  what- 
ever chance  suggests — the  morning  paper,  the  chat  at  the 
club,  the  sights  of  the  street,  the  routine  of  business,  is 
like  a  farmer  who  lets  his  field  be  windsown,  instead  of 
selecting  the  seed;  his  ground  will  be  covered  with 
growths  and  will  bear  some  flowers  and  a  little  fruit,  but 
mainly  weeds  unless  the  winds  blow  to  him  over  the  well- 
tilled  fields  of  neighbors.  Such  people  may  seem  as 
respectable  or  as  despicable  as  their  surroundings,  but 
are  in  either  case  equally  devoid  of  self-determined  per- 
sonality. In  one  environment  they  might  be  toughs  or 
sneak  thieves,  slatterns  or  prostitutes,  while  in  another 
they  speak  proper  English,  wear  clean  linen,  and  practice 
conventional  morality.  They  are  drifting  derelicts, 
rotten  hulks  if  environment  so  shape  them,  or  with  fresh 
paint  and  glittering  brass  by  better  fortune,  but  in  either 
case  without  engine  or  steering  gear,  floating  forever 
aimlessly  or  entering  some  harbor  or  crushed  upon  the 
rocks,  as  tide  and  wind  determine.  There  are  others 
whose  nature  reacts  strongly  to  certain  standards  and 
stimulations,  and  holds  to  the  course  thus  defined  in  spite 
of  counter  allurements.  Their  conduct  is  not  determined 
from  moment  to  moment  by  present  opportunities  and 
influences,  nor  even  by  old  habits,  but  by  an  inner  set  of 
the  organism,  established  and  maintained  by  attention  to 
an  idea  and  purpose  that  is  cherished  and  remembered 
notwithstanding  the  changes  of  circumstances,  or  with 
the  aid  of  circumstances  of  their  own  choosing. 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  143 

The  only  unpardonable  sin  is  failure  to  have  and  keep 
before  the  mind  an  honest  ideal.  An  honest  ideal  is  one 
that  its  possessor  adopts  and  holds  with  his  eyes  open, 
open  to  all  that  he  can  see  of  life's  present  and  future 
meaning  to  himself  and  to  all  who  are  to  be  affected  by 
his  life.  Such  honesty  and  constancy  require  the  courage 
and  strength  not  to  flinch  from  looking  at  the  most 
exacting  truths  as  well  as  at  the  most  consoling  ones, 
and  not  to  let  the  ideal  fade  away  into  the  background 
of  consciousness ;  they  imply  the  humility  that  admits  the 
evilness  of  one's  own  evil,  and  the  goodness  of  the  good 
unattained,  and  makes  each  error  the  occasion  of  fresh 
resolve.  The  man  of  integrity  is  true  to  his  ideal,  that  is, 
to  his  deliberate  and  honest  view  of  what  his  life  should 
be,  just  as  the  needle  is  true  to  the  pole,  which  may  oscil- 
late indeed,  but  turns  continually  toward  its  star. 

A  schedule  of  life's  pains  and  satisfactions  would  by 
no  means  be  complete  without  including  reference  to  the 
peculiar  experience  which  is  felt  in  the  pain  of  self- 
mutilation  and  the  peace  of  personal  consistency.  There 
is  satisfaction  and  there  are  pleasures.  Satisfaction  is 
the  deep  strong  current  of  life,  pleasures  are  its  ripples. 
One  may  have  pleasures  and  never  know  satisfaction, 
but  have  instead  only  the  termination  of  pleasure  in 
satiety,  and  the  unrest  of  those  who  have  never  discov- 
ered life's  deeper,  fuller  values.  Satisfaction  is  for  all 
who  can  frame  and  pursue  intentions  to  which  their 
whole  nature  consents  as  good  enough  to  be  the  measure 
of  their  life,  and  the  pursuit  of  which  is  in  itself  a  well- 
spring  of  satisfaction,  and  waters  into  bloom  and  fruit 
all  other  joys,  in  their  due  place  and  measure.  When  the 
realization  forces  itself  upon  the  mind  that  one's  action 


144  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

does  not  correspond  to  the  approved  sel f -thought ;  when 
some  errant  impulse  has  defied  the  cherished  judgment 
centrally  enthroned,  and  forced  the  admission:  "I  am 
not  that  which  I  thought  I  was  and  meant  to  be,  but 
something  other,  which  I  disapprove" ;  when  there  is  a 
breach  between  one's  judgment  and  one's  conduct,  a 
hiatus  in  one's  personality;  then  there  is  wretchedness: 
but  conformity  and  unity  between  conduct  and  the 
thought  of  life,  the  thought  that  is  reaffirmed  and  ap- 
proved whenever  the  whole  nature  asserts  itself,  and  acts 
are  viewed  in  their  entirety — not  when  one  clamorous 
impulse  drowns  all  the  rest  and  one  single  fragment  of 
man's  nature  leads  him  captive  and  he  is  dazed  by  the 
present  importunity  of  external  occasion  and  reason 
utters  faint  protests  from  the  farther  rim  of  conscious- 
ness, but  conformity  and  unity  between  conduct  and  the 
thought  of  life  that  stands  forth  when  no  external  occa- 
sion clamors  and  the  untroubled  judgment  holds  in  bal- 
anced regard  all  the  interests  of  life,  the  concept  of  one's 
own  life  which  each  calls  his  better  self,  the  experience 
of  this  conformity  has  a  value  that  cannot  be  omitted 
from  the  inventory  of  the  good  of  life — it  is  peace,  it  is 
moral  health;  without  it  one  may  have  pleasures,  as  one 
sick  or  maimed  may  enjoy  dainties  brought  to  his  bed- 
side, but  not  the  zest  of  sound  life.  This  is  that  good 
of  which  the  Stoics  taught  that  it  so  outweighs  all  others 
that  no  blow  of  fortune  or  act  of  man  is  to  be  regarded 
as  calamity  so  long  as  this  inward  treasure  is  inviolate. 
"No  one  can  harm  you/'  said  the  Stoics,  "but  yourself, 
your  own  act  alone  can  mutilate  your  personality." 

Here  is  a  kind  of  satisfaction  wholly  different  from 
our  enjoyment  of  eating  or  any  physical  pleasure,  or  our 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES 

delight  in  intellectual  interest  and  comprehension,  or  our 
appreciation  of  the  beautiful,  or  our  gladness  in  lovinj 
another  or  in  being  loved,  respected,  admired,  or  ap- 
plauded. The  applause  and  approval  of  others  may  be 
turned  to  bitterness  by  the  absence  of  this  other  satis- 
faction of  self -approval,  and  great  as  our  pleasure  in 
applause  is  wont  to  be,  we  value  it  lightly,  if  at  all,  when 
we  are  applauded  for  that  which  we  do  not  value  in 
ourselves.  I  have  pointed  out  the  intimate  relationship 
between  the  personal  satisfaction  and  social  approval, 
and  we  should  not  forget  how  largely  our  standards  of 
self- judgment  grow  out  of  the  approvals  and  disap- 
provals that  have  been  expressed  by  those  who  influence 
us,  and  how  largely  our  self-approval  is  strengthened  or 
weakened  by  the  judgment  that  others  pass  upon  us.  Yet 
our  standards  of  self-judgment,  however  derived,  are 
our  own  after  we  have  formed  them,  and  the  experience 
of  self-approval  is  so  distinct  from  the  experience  of 
social  approval  that  it  may  incite  one  to  stand  contra 
mundum,  rather  than  violate  his  own  soul.  It  does  incite 
every  righteous  man  to  stand  against  world,  flesh,  and 
devil.  It  is  so  distinct  from  pleasure  in  social  approval 
that,  perverted  in  the  stubborn  or  erratic  man,  it  leads 
him  to  defy  the  judgment  of  others  for  the  sheer  pleasure 
of  getting  a  pungent  self -sense.  It  sustains  the  thinker, 
at  times  the  most  solitary  of  men,  in  an  honesty  that  may 
compel  him  to  sacrifice  agreement  with  his  associates  and 
the  consolation  of  approval  and  companionship  of  both 
the  God  of  his  fathers  and  of  men,  so  that  some,  facing 
that  hateful  loneliness,  have  walked  out  into  it  and  dwelt 
there,  for  a  time  at  least,  in  the  belief  that  reason  required 
it,  and  that  to  cling  to  the  cherished  belief  would  be  the 


146  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

dishonesty  of  willful  self-deception,  and  to  flinch  from 
carrying  to  their  logical  conclusion  the  processes  of 
thought  would  be  the  abandonment  of  their  own 
integrity. 

It  may  be  that  not  many  in  a  thousand  would  be 
prompted  by  this  motive  to  stand  against  the  world,  but 
it  is  not  true  that  the  presence  of  this  motive,  in  some 
degree,  is  rare.  On  the  contrary  it  is  universal.  It  is 
what  Sumner  and  others  call  the  "social  force  of  vanity." 
That  cynical  appellation  calls  attention  to  the  trivial  or 
contemptible  exhibitions  of  this  phase  of  life.  It  has 
other  exhibitions  that  do  not  fall  short  of  sublimity.  To 
select  the  word  "vanity"  as  the  designation  for  this  phase 
of  human  life  is  to  prefer  the  meaner  fraction  to  the 
whole  of  the  truth.  Pride  is  sometimes  base  and  some- 
times noble.  At  its  best  it  is  the  sense  of  the  worth  of 
personality  on  the  part  of  the  one  who  is  responsible  for 
that  worth.  Every  street  boy  who  says  to  himself,  "I 
wouldn't  be  so  mean,"  has  it.  And  though  we  cozen 
ourselves  into  the  acceptance  of  easy  standards,  the  mor- 
dant regret  will  now  and  then  be  felt,  as  we  catch 
glimpses  of  the  self  we  "might  have  been."  Indeed  our 
self-deception  consists  largely  in  retaining  only  those 
parts  of  the  ideal  that  we  find  it  easy  to  obey  while 
denying  the  validity  of  hard  requirements;  thus  we  are 
seldom  left — even  the  worst  of  us — without  some  rem- 
nants of  righteousness,  and,  far  from  being  totally  de- 
praved, the  demand  for  goodness  competes  with  the 
other  urgencies  of  our  nature. 

Moreover,  it  would  be  absurd  to  imagine  that  the 
gratified  self -sense  comes  only  in  connection  with  the 
rare  heroic  experiences  of  life.  It  comes  with  conscious 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  147 

sincerity   and   right   intention    in   the   commonest    day. 

Still  further,  as  already  pointed  out,  it  is  not  the 
peculiar  accompaniment  of  moral  excellence  alone.  It  is 
the  sense  of  power,  for  which  all  that  is  strong  in  us 
hungers.  Like  every  other  craving  of  our  natures,  when 
indulged  in  disregard  of  other  values  realizable  by  our- 
selves or  others,  it  becomes  dangerous,  in  proportion  to 
its  strength  as  a  motive.  It  gives  power  to  every  ambi- 
tion, whether  base  or  noble.  As  desire  for  wealth  may 
prompt  to  theft  instead  of  thrift,  so  this  may  prompt  to 
mere  self-aggrandizement  in  disregard  of  social  values. 
It  is  the  sense  of  every  power  and  every  excellence  to- 
which  we  aspire.  Of  all  satisfactions  it  is  the  most  con- 
stant and  reliable,  and  the  least  subject  to  the  tyranny 
of  circumstances.  In  it  the  strong  nature  of  the  Stoic 
takes  refuge  against  all  vicissitudes.  One  lives  always 
with  the  self  that  one  sincerely  and  consistently  chooses. 
In  small  and  great  activities  the  self-sense  gives  color  to 
an  experience.  The  player  winning  his  game,  or  stiffly 
holding  against  a  superior  antagonist,  the  tidy  house- 
wife, the  carpenter  surveying  the  perfect  joint  which  he 
has  made,  as  well  as  the  legislator  who  has  refused  a 
bribe,  have  the  satisfaction  of  an  acceptable  self.  The 
ditcher  may  have  a  thought  of  himself  as  a  ditcher  which 
puts  into  his  toil  a  glow  of  idealistic  satisfaction  as  real 
as  that  felt  by  the  artist.  It  is  present  in  every  sort  of 
worthy  life  work,  and  in  a  degree,  in  every  activity  of 
man,  not  of  work  only  but  also  of  play,  which  he 
approves  as  a  part  of  that  concatenated  system  of  activi- 
ties which  he  recognizes  as  his  living  self. 

The  folly  of  vanity  consists  not  in  appreciating  one's 
own  more  trivial  excellences,  but  in  appreciating  them 


148  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

disproportionately.  Vanity  is  the  lightness  which  is  too 
much  uplifted  by  slight  matters  and  too  indifferent  to 
weighty  ones.  And  vanity  is  commonly  associated  with 
petty  injustice  in  the  preference  of  that  which  is  one's 
own  and  the  disparagement  of  that  which  is  another's. 
The  disparagement  of  another's  excellence  is  one  of  two 
poles  of  meanness,  of  which  the  other  is  the  hypocritical 
humility  which  pretends  indifference  to  one's  own  excel- 
lence. It  is  absurd  to  ask  men  to  value  excellence  every- 
where except  in  themselves.  Virtue  is  always  proud 
and  will  not  stoop.  But  it  is  always  humble  in  the  sense 
above  defined;  it  sees  the  ideal  shining  ahead  and  counts 
itself  not  to  have  attained.  It  compares  itself  with  the 
ideal,  the  good  that  should  be  striven  for,  and  not  with 
other  men. 

The  fact  that  an  exhilarating  self -sense  may  be  had 
in  common  work — by  the  ditcher  and  the  carpenter — is 
emphasized  by  one  of  the  most  helpful  discussions  in  this 
field,8  which  goes  so  far  as  to  say  that  the  economic 
interest,  or  wealth  experience,  is  the  joy  of  the  workman 
who  shapes  material  things  to  human  uses.  If  the  view 
expressed  in  earlier  paragraphs  is  correct,  there  is  not  a 
single  economic  motive;  but  every  human  desire,  the 
satisfaction  of  which  requires  the  employment  of  ma- 
terial means  fashioned  by  labor  is  an  economic  motive, 
and  such  motives  are  reenforced  by  appetite  for  the  social 
applause  that  follows  business  success  and  for  the  self- 
respect  that  comes  of  capable  work.  But  according  to 
Professor  Small,  the  joy  of  productive  labor  upon 
material  things  is  the  wealth  interest.  In  that  view  the 
wealth  experience  is  not  to  be  had  by  the  possession  of 
8  Small,  General  Sociology,  459  et  seq. 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  149 

goods  that  derive  commercial  value  from  natural  scarcity, 
but  only  those  that  derive  it  from  the  labor  required  for 
their  production,  nor  is  the  wealth  experience  to  be  had 
by  the  possession  of  any  goods,  but  only  by  the  produc- 
tion of  goods.  And  it  is  only  the  worker  in  material 
goods  that  has  the  wealth  experience  and  not  the  man 
who  appropriates  those  goods  by  trade,  or  earns  them  as 
the  reward  of  his  song  or  his  wisdom.  The  good  human 
experience  which  this  teacher  extols  with  impressive  elo- 
quence is  a  reality,  but  is  it  the  economic  interest?  And 
is  it  the  exclusive  possession  of  the  producer  of  material 
goods;  or  shall  we  say  that  man  discovers  himself  only 
in  action,  not  in  sleep  or  any  negative  state;  that  he 
realizes  himself  only  in  the  fulfillment  of  his  intention 
by  his  deed ;  and  that  whatever  the  nature  of  the  deed  he 
has  the  same  essential  satisfaction?  Is  not  this  self-sense 
of  a  functioning  personality  in  its  most  essential  quality 
the  same  kind  of  experience  in  the  case  of  a  carpenter 
helping  to  build  a  house,  a  scholar  helping  to  build  a 
science,  or  a  statesman  helping  to  build  a  constitution? 
If  so,  it  is  far  from  being  the  peculiar  joy  and  dignity 
of  those  who  are  occupied  in  shaping  material  things 
for  human  uses;  it  is  rather  the  common  joy  of  those 
who  work,  and  behold  in  the  fruits  of  their  labor  the 
fulfillment  of  their  intention. 


INSTINCT  AND  SATISFACTION 

The  position  of  Professor  Small  which  was  just  noted 
has  resulted  from  connecting  economic  satisfaction  with 
the  supposed  "instinct  of  workmanship"  which  has  been 


150  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

given  so  much  prominence  in  recent  discussion,9  instead 
of  connecting  it  with  a  more  general  predisposition,  the 
existence  of  which  is  free  from  all  doubt,  namely,  the 
predisposition  to  enlarge  our  own  role  and  to  take  satis- 
faction in  the  expression  of  our  own  will. 

The  activity  and  satisfaction  attributed  to  an  instinct 
of  workmanship  are  explicable  without  the  assumption 
of  any  such  instinct.  Man  has  no  need  of  an  instinct 
of  workmanship  in  order  to  secure  all  the  results  which 
such  a  special  instinct  is  supposed  to  account  for.  Man 
has  a  powerful  urgency  toward  self-expression  and  self- 
enlargement ;  the  gratification  is  felt  as  the  experience  of 
power  or  self-realization  which  we  have  been  discussing. 
In  itself  this  is  no  more  an  instinct  of  construction 
than  of  destruction.  This  tendency  functions  in  the 
successful  safe-cracker  and  in  every  Napoleon  pushing 
forward  schemes  of  destructive  ambition.  The  child 
smearing  the  tablecloth  with  ink  has  glee  in  seeing  its 
own  activity  objectifying  itself  in  results.  The  self- 
expression  of  a  child  is  likely  to  be  mischief  because 
he  is  only  a  child.  The  self-expression  in  which  a  man 
finds  satisfaction  is  likely  to  be  materially  or  socially 
constructive  because  he  is  a  man;  that  is,  because  he  is 
a  more  or  less  rational  being  and  a  product  of  social 
rearing,  who  approves  in  himself  that  which  society  has 
taught  him  to  approve  and  which  his  own  reason  plans. 
Thus  we  behave  as  if  we  had  an  instinctive  bent  to  do 
constructive  or  useful  things  largely,  if  not  wholly,  be- 
cause we  are  alive  and  want  to  function,  our  powers 
demand  exercise,  we  find  delight  in  self-expression,  in 

•Compare   Thornstein   Veblen,    The   Instinct   of    Workmanship. 
Macmillan,  1914. 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  151 

seeing  our  own  activity  objectify  itself  in  results,  and  since 
we  are  somewhat  reasonable  and  very  much  molded  by 
social  judgments,  normally  reared  adults  commonly  adopt 
as  their  mode  of  self-expression  activities  which  meet 
with  rational  and  social  approval. 

This  discussion  leads  us  to  the  general  question  of 
the  relation  between  instincts  and  satisfactions.  Instinc- 
tive action  regularly  includes  an  emotional  phase.  Thus 
the  instinct  of  flight  includes  the  emotion  of  fear,  and 
the  instinct  of  self -display  includes  the  emotion  of 
elation.  A  given  variety  of  instinctive  emotion  may  be 
painful  if  obstructed  or  pleasurable  if  the  instinctive 
activity  goes  triumphantly  to  its  object.  And  some  vari- 
eties of  instinctive  emotion  are  predominantly  painful, 
as  fear  and  disgust.10  Since  the  same  instinctive  emo- 
tion may  be  either  painful  or  pleasurable,  and  some  in- 
stinctive reactions  are  characteristically  painful,  it  is  clear 
that  the  instinctive  emotions,  as  such,  do  not  exactly 
coincide  with  the  satisfactions.  It  is  the  purpose  of  the 
instincts  to  secure  survival,  not  joy.  And  the  instinctive 
actions  which  are  felt  as  fear,  disgust,  and  anger  are  as 
truly  necessary  to  survival  on  the  instinctive  level  as 
pleasure  and  pleasurable  activity. 

Besides  the  instincts  we  have  special  nerve  endings  to 
detect  painful  contacts  and  certain  vaguely  pleasurable 
sensations  that  guide  reflex  action  which  does  not  rise 
to  the  level  of  instinct,  but  which  must  be  included  in 
our  idea  of  inborn  propensity.  All  of  our  activities 
above  the  rudimentary  physiological  functions  that  we 
share  with  lower  animals,  all  of  that  socially  evolved 
activity  that  differentiates  man  from  the  dumb  brutes,  is 
"Compare  McDougall,  Social  Psychology,  48.  Luce  &  Co. 


152  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

at  bottom  the  functioning  of  some  well  developed  in- 
stinct or  propensity.  And  all  of  our  satisfactions  of 
whatever  grade  are  dependent  upon  inborn  capacities  for 
activities  that  contain  an  element  of  satisfaction.  How- 
ever much  inborn  tendency  may  be  disguised  by  education 
and  habit,  however  greatly  acquired  tastes  and  senti- 
ments may  differ  from  primitive  emotions,  we  have  no 
satisfaction  that  does  not  depend  upon  the  functioning  of 
an  instinct  or  predisposition  that  is  common  to  all  normal 
human  beings. 

Since  instinctive  actions  contain  our  satisfaction  it  is 
worth  our  while  to  note  the  kind  of  pleasure  likely  to  be 
found  in  the  functioning  of  a  given  instinct.  Thus,  the 
functioning  of  the  food  and  sex  instincts  carry  physical 
pleasures.  Activities  of  the  gregarious,  parental,  and 
loyalty  instincts  carry  social  pleasures.  The  personal 
satisfactions  may  be  had  in  any  course  of  action  that 
the  individual  adopts  so  that  it  becomes  a  mode  of  con- 
scious self-expression.  They  are  strong  in  connection 
with  all  actions  that  objectify  the  fulfillment  of  one's 
intention  in  visible  results,  either  in  material  things 
fashioned  to  the  will  of  the  actor  or  in  the  changed  activ- 
ities of  other  men.  The  personal  satisfaction  in  control- 
ling the  activities  of  other  men  is  strongly  felt  in  con- 
nection with  the  emotion  of  elation  included  in  the  instinct 
of  dominance  and  in  that  "self-mastery"  which  is  sub- 
jugation of  fragmentary  impulses  in  complete  self- 
expression.  Psychologists  have  familiarized  us  with  the 
fact  that  the  self -thought  includes  whatever  we  include  in 
our  habitual  description  of  self,  and  we  have  observed 
that  self-satisfaction  may  rest  on  base  as  well  as  on  noble 
grounds.  The  miser's  self-satisfaction  rests  upon  the 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  153 

thought  of  himself  as  rich.  If  he  were  impoverished  his 
sense  of  identity  would  dwindle,  and  he  might  even  go 
crazy,  like  Silas  Marner  when  he  lost  his  hoard.  Intel- 
lectual pleasure  is  found  in  the  satisfaction  of  curiosity, 
and  in  what  we  call  "interest,"  which  pertains  to  activity 
of  the  cognative  powers.  The  esthetic  pleasures  accom- 
pany functioning  of  a  universal  human  instinct  or  pro- 
pensity which  in  its  negative  aspect  is  repulsion  and  dis- 
gust, in  its  positive  aspect  is  attraction  and  appreciation. 
While  "desire"  and  "satisfaction"  are  not  merely  other 
names  for  instinctive  emotion,  they  are  nevertheless  ele- 
ments, correlative  with  each  other,  and  contained  in  those 
activities  for  which  we  are  prepared  by  native  predis- 
positions. 

WORK  AND  PLAY 

Earlier  in  this  chapter  it  was  said  that  human  activity 
may  be  looked  at  either  as  experience  which  is  an  end 
in  itself,  or  as  conduct  which  is  a  means  to  future  expe- 
riences. That  is  much  like  saying  that  an  activity  may 
be  regarded  either  as  play  or  as  work. 

The  contrast  between  work  and  play  does  not  lie  in 
the  objective  character  of  the  activity  but  in  its  value  to 
the  actor.  Almost  any  overt  activity  may  be  either  work 
or  play.  Hunting  and  fishing  which  are  work  indeed  for 
hunters  and  fishermen  are  the  very  type  of  play.  Gar- 
dening which  bears  the  primal  curse  of  toil  is  a  form  of 
play  to  thousands.  Driving  fine  horses  is  work  to  the 
coachman  and  jockey  but  play  to  their  owner.  Even 
professional  baseball  becomes  work.  There  is  hardly 
a  form  of  labor  which  is  not  imitated  by  children  as  play. 

We  have  been  taught  that  play  is  the  expression  of  a 


154  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

special  play  instinct.  That  is  an  error.  Play  is  many 
times  more  instinctive  than  that.  It  is  the  expression  of 
every  instinct  in  the  functioning  of  which  we  find  pleas- 
ure. Play  is  any  activity  in  which  we^find  a  satisfaction 
that  is  sufficient  to  be  a  motive  for  the  continuance  of 
the  activity.  It  is  not  a  matter  of  hands  and  heels 
alone,  but  may  be  the  exercise  of  the  loftiest  gifts  of 
intelligence  and  sensibility.  Art  is  play.  Research  may 
be  play  as  truly  as  hide-and-seek.  All  satisfaction  is  in 
the  functioning  of  some  power  of  mind  or  body.  It  is  in 
the  play  of  our  powers  that  we  find  all  conscious  life  and 
all  ultimate  values.  Activity  becomes  work  when  the 
motive  of  the  activity  is  found,  not  in  the  satisfaction 
which  the  activity  contains  but  in  some  ulterior  aim, 
some  external  sanction,  some  proffered  reward  or  threat- 
ened penalty. 

Work  may  be  as  zestful  a  functioning  of  our  powers 
as  any  mere  play.  It  is  possible  to  distinguish  between 
mere  play  or  activity  which  has  all  its  motive  and  value 
in  itself;  work  that  is  play,  that  is,  activity  which  has 
a  double  value,  both  satisfaction  in  itself  and  an  ulterior 
aim ;  and  mere  work,  which  as  activity  is  joyless  or  even 
painful  but  is  induced  by  motives  external  to  itself. 

The  reasons  why  we  think  of  play  as  more  joyous 
than  work  are  mainly  two:  First,  work  is  often  done 
from  necessity,  and  some  necessary  work  is  painful,  while 
play  is  the  free  part  of  life  which  we  choose  according  to 
our  inclination;  consequently  in  play  we  do  what  is  con- 
genial to  us.  But  what  we  choose  as  play  another  may  do 
as  work,  and  what  we  do  as  work  another  may  engage  in 
as  play.  Second,  we  all  get  enough  of  our  daily  occupa- 
tion and  want  change.  Activity  is  subjected  to  a  law  of 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  155 

diminishing  returns;  an  activity  of  which  we  have  but 
little  is  more  valuable  to  us  than  addition  to  an  activity  of 
which  we  already  have  enough.  The  activities  in  which 
we  engage  as  diversion  from  our  main  occupation  are 
delightful  as  diversions.  But  most  of  them  would  become 
intolerably  irksome  if  pursued  eight  hours  a  day  six  days 
a  week  for  a  working  lifetime. 

All  the  values  of  life  may  be  realized  in  work,  or 
rather  values  of  every  kind.  Work  includes  the  zestful 
exercise  of  our  powers,  physical  or  intellectual,  it  very 
commonly  includes  an  esthetic  element,  it  is  a  means  of 
communication  and  cooperation  with  our  kind  and  wins 
their  recognition  and  esteem,  and  in  work  we  see  our 
own  worth,  power,  and  mastery  proved  and  objectified 
before  our  minds.  Moreover,  work  is  purposeful,  and 
contains  not  merely  present  realization  of  every  kind  but 
also  hope  and  anticipation,  not  only  joy  in  the  working 
but  also  joy  in  the  remoter  end  to  which  the  labor  is 
the  means.  And  finally  work  is  commonly  of  use  to 
others  and  so  secures  the  altruistic  reduplication  of  satis- 
faction. 

In  the  classic  impersonation  of  humanity's  quest  for 
satisfaction  Faust  tastes  first  the  intellectual  pleasures 
and  they  leave  him  in  a  mood  for  suicide;  thereafter 
he  tries  license,  wealth,  power,  glory,  beauty,  and  mas- 
tery over  nature,  but  finds  no  hour  in  which  to  cry: 
"Tarry  for  thou  art  fair/'  no  hour  of  satisfaction,  until 
at  last  he  discovers  life  in  useful  work. 

Only  action  is  life,  only  purposeful  action  is  life  in  full 
tide,  only  a  purpose  that  is  of  use,  that  is  real,  that  is 
worthy  of  our  powers,  that  disregards  no  values  it 
affects,  that  weaves  into  the  web  of  human  realization, 


156  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

of  which  our  own  experience  is  a  conscious  part,  ever 
truly  and  fully  satisfies  a  rational,  social  being.  Such 
action  is  work,  and  such  work  is  play,  not  "child's  play," 
but  the  free  harmonious  play  of  all  the  resources  of  our 
being. 

Work,  home,  friends,  health,  play, — these  are  among 
the  symbols  of  life  abundant  with  its  fivefold  satisfac- 
tions :  physical,  esthetic,  intellectual,  social,  and  personal. 
To  be  interested  is  to  be  alive,  not  to  be  interested  is,  to 
a  conscious  being,  death  or  stupor.  To  have  an  aim 
worthy  of  one's  possibilities,  a  sincerity  at  peace  with 
one's  own  reason,  a  loyalty  to  that  social  whole  which  is 
immeasurably  greater  than  any  single  self  and  member- 
ship in  which  conditions  the  worth  of  every  individual 
life — these  are  essentials  of  a  complete  human  existence, 
the  experience  of  a  true  son  of  man,  joint  heir  in  man's 
rich  inheritance  and  a  participant  with  all  true  men  and 
with  nature  in  the  work  of  social  creation. 

THE  GOOD  A  SOCIAL  CONCEPT 

The  ancient  Sophist  said  the  good  is  the  good-in- 
consciousness,  but  he  lacked  the  social  point  of  view.  He 
drew  a  tiny  circle  around  himself  within  which  the  good 
was  supposed  to  be.  He  had  not  the  notion  of  good  as 
a  process  of  fulfillment  to  be  realized  in  the  cumulative 
experience  of  mankind.  Nor  did  he  see  the  consequences 
of  conduct,  by  which  it  must  be  judged,  running  out  into 
the  wide  spheres  of  social  causation  which  modern  en- 
lightenment is  exploring.  We  now  begin  to  perceive  that 
the  good  to  be  striven  for  is  not  my  good  but  the  good, 
and  the  good  is  the  good  of  the  whole  society  of  which 
I  am  a  functioning  part. 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  157 

The  hedonist  ultimately  discovers  that  the  pursuit  of 
his  own  happiness  does  not  lead  to  happiness.  John 
Stuart  Mill,  one  of  the  soundest  of  men,  in  mind  and 
heart,  after  long  experience  in  practicing  the  utilitarian 
philosophy,  wrote  in  his  autobiography :  "Those  only  are 
happy  who  have  their  minds  fixed  on  some  object  other 
than  their  own  happiness.  .  .  .  Aiming  thus  at  some- 
thing else  they  find  happiness  by  the  way.  The  enjoy- 
ments of  life  are  sufficient  to  make  it  a  pleasant  thing, 
when  they  are  taken  en  passant,  without  being  made  a 
principal  object.  Once  make  them  so,  and  they  are  im- 
mediately felt  to  be  insufficient.  They  will  not  bear  a 
scrutinizing  examination."  J1 

What  is  that  other  aim  which  one  may  reasonably 
pursue  and  in  pursuit  of  which  his  own  happiness  is 
achieved?  It  is  fulfillment  of  the  possibilities  of  good 
experience  that  are  latent  or  but  partially  fulfilled  in  the 
society  of  which  he  is  a  member  and  with  which  he  is  in 
effective  communication,  be  that  society  great  in  numbers 
or  small.  This  is  an  aim  in  the  pursuit  of  which  life  is 
found  to  be  not  merely  "a  pleasant  thing"  but  a  zestful 
thing,  nobly  evoking  all  man's  powers  and  often  arousing 
him  to  a  glorious  enthusiasm.  John  Stuart  Mill,  Josiah 
Royce,  in  his  Philosophy  of  Loyalty,  and  others  from 
ancient  to  modern  times,  from  Christ  to  Goethe,  are 
right  in  declaring  that  "he  who  seeketh  his  life  shall  lose 
it,  and  he  that  loseth  his  life  shall  find  it."  No  man  is 
wholly  and  humanly  happy  without  an  aim  that  is  greater 
than  his  own  good.  And  what  aim  is  there  that  is  greater 
than  the  happiness  of  a  man?  The  happiness  of  men. 

"John  Stuart  Mill,  Autobiography,  c.  v.  142.    New  York,  Hennr 
Holt 


158  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

The  only  greater  aim  which  he  can  promote  is  the  social 
good.  Maa  becomes  fully  man  only  by  the  realization 
of  membership  in  some  society  great  or  small.  The  har- 
monious fulfillment  of  that  system  of  good  experience- 
activity  which  constitutes  life,  must  be  a  cooperative 
social  achievement  in  which  each  depends  upon  all. 

This  is  not  the  doctrine  that  a  life  of  social  service, 
being  the  only  road  to  the  fullness  of  life,  exacts  no 
sacrifice.  Only  in  a  completely  normal  society  will  the 
way  of  transgressors  be  made  as  hard  and  that  of  the 
righteous  as  shining  as  it  should.  Moreover,  it  is  not 
to  beasts  but  only  to  persons  of  normal  social  develop- 
ment that  the  law  of  normal  life  applies.  A  villain  in  a 
villainous  world  may  be  happier  acting  as  a  villain  than 
in  attempting  the  role  of  an  angel,  but  not  so  happy  as 
a  righteous  man  in  a  good  world.  The  devil  gets  some 
compensations  out  of  his  deviltry  and  we  need  not 
grudge  them  to  him.  The  righteous  man  is  devoted  and 
will  suffer,  if  need  be,  in  a  bad  world  to  pay  part  of  the 
cost  of  making  it  better. 

At  the  same  time  no  man  is  fully  satisfied  until  he 
partakes  in  the  social  devotion.  Young  millionaires  who 
left  their  life  of  dainty  self-indulgence  for  the  Great 
War  and  peeled  potatoes  in  the  cantonments  and  were 
cased  in  the  mud  of  the  trenches  testify  that  it  was  the 
happiest  time  of  their  lives,  because  they  were  for  the 
first  time  included  in  a  great  social  cooperation  with  ade- 
quate motives  and  were  possessed  by  the  social  devotion. 
The  need  and  opportunity  for  such  devotion  are  never 
absent.  We  are  social  beings,  and  though  we  may  shrink 
from  it  as  the  child  bather  from  the  first  plunge,  social 
devotion  is  our  element.  Without  it  we  never  fully  get 


THE  SOCIAL  VALUES  159 

the  social  satisfactions,  and  without  them  life  is  abortive. 
Neither  do  we  get  the  personal  satisfactions  so  long  as 
we  stultify  our  reason  and  balk  our  social  instincts  by 
acting  with  sole  regard  for  that  fraction  of  the  interests 
we  affect  which  can  be  realized  in  our  own  experience. 
We  feel  ourselves  men,  and  living,  when  we  accept  our 
human  citizenship  and  live  by  purposes  that  are  bigger 
than  our  own  ego.  Sometime,  when  society  at  large — 
and  not  alone  the  seers  like  Christ  or  Mill  or  Royce  or 
Goethe,  realizes  this  truth — social  suggestion  will  cease 
to  mislead  us  into  pettiness  and  instead  will  incite  us  to 
individual  realization  through  participation  in  social 
teamwork. 

To  the  doubt  whether  life  itself  may  profitably  be 
subjected  to  scientific  analysis,  whether  we  are  wise  to 
dissect  our  own  emotions,  ideals,  and  beliefs,  we  have 
answered  that  the  insatiable  intellect,  hungering  for  com- 
prehension, cannot  be  stopped  by  such  scruples  from  this 
prying  investigation,  that  such  knowledge  and  in- 
sight as  is  possible  to  us  is  unescapable  and  must  be 
faced,  and  that  the  implications  of  our  knowledge  cannot 
be  glossed  over.  Therefore,  with  determination  not  to 
flinch  from  pursuit  of  the  utmost  truth  within  our 
powers,  we  have  set  out  to  meet  it,  welcoming  it  and 
reconstructing  our  ideals  and  beliefs  accordingly  and 
accepting  such  emotions  as  may  come  to  us.  If  this 
course  create  for  our  mental  life  a  new  environment  by 
dispelling  and  replacing  cherished  illusions  about  the 
unknowable,  then  let  us  begin  a  new  process  of  adapta- 
tion to  our  environment,  for  there  is  fresh  power  of 
adaptation  so  long  as  there  is  store  of  courage.  What 
seems  ruin  may  prove  to  be  the  necessary  clearing  of  the 


160  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

ground  to  build  higher  than  before.  Transition  is  costly, 
like  the  introduction  of  labor-saving  machines  that  ren- 
der old  skill  profitless  but  prepare  the  way  for  general 
comfort  and  plenty,  impossible  before.  And  a  clear  per- 
ception, or  as  clear  a  perception  as  we  can  attain,  of  the 
good  of  life  and  the  method  of  its  realization  may  afford 
better  guidance  and  as  powerful  an  incentive  as  any  of 
the  illusions  that  fall  away, 


CHAPTER  VIII 

SOCIAL  VALUES  AS  OBJECTS  OF  KNOWLEDGE,  OR  THE 
PROBLEM  OF  THE  GOOD 

Only  those  phenomena  can  be  treated  adequately  by 
the  methods  of  science  which  can  be  observed  and  de- 
scribed, so  that  with  reference  to  their  qualities  a  "con- 
sensus of  the  competent"  may  be  established.  We  are 
assured  by  certain  writers  that  the  most  essential  qualities 
of  social  activities,  namely,  their  value  as  good  or  bad 
human  experiences,  being  subjective,  are  known  only  to 
the  actors,  perceived  by  no  one,  and  therefore  incapable 
of  observation  or  description.  Wherefore  they  must  be 
approached  by  the  more  direct  metaphysical  method  of 
"appreciation."  l 

The  word  "appreciation,"  introduced  into  technical 
philosophical  terminology  by  Professor  Royce,  and  by 
different  writers  somewhat  vaguely  and  variously  used, 
appears  to  mean,  not  merely  sympathy  in  the  ordinary 
sense,  but  a  direct  knowledge  of  the  content  of  conscious- 
ness of  our  associates,  based,  according  to  some,  upon 
the  metaphysical  doctrine  of  the  unity  of  all  souls  as 
parts  of  one  "world  process."  It  does  not  appear  to  me 
at  all  necessary,  for  the  purposes  of  sociology,  or  for  any 
other  purpose,  to  imagine  any  mystical  communion  of  all 

*This  view  is  expounded  in  The  American  Journal  of  Sociology, 
x.  354,  also  501,  and  xii.  822,  and  commented  upon  by  the  present 
writer  in  the  same  journal,  xi.  623,  and  xii.  831. 

161 


162  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

souls,  nor  to  adopt  any  "other  and  more  direct  mode  of 
approach"  to  social  phenomena  than  the  familiar  methods 
of  science  and  common  sense,2  namely,  experience,  ob- 
servation, and  inference. 

The  fact  that  the  experiences  of  others  cannot  be  per- 
ceived and  described  precisely  as  flowers  and  butterflies 
are  perceived  and  described  of  course  is  very  far  from  be- 
ing proof  that  they  can  be  known  by  any  metaphysical 
method  of  appreciation.  We  certainly  feel  that  we  know 
something  about  the  experiences  of  our  associates.  And 
there  is  no  occasion  to  think  that  this  sense  of  knowledge 
is  derived  by  a  process  radically  different  'from  that  by 
which  other  knowledge  comes.  If  there  are  some  limita- 
tions on  our  knowledge  of  the  experiences  of  our  associ- 
ates, through  observation  and  inference,  those  limitations 
by  no  means  wholly  exclude  such  knowledge.  And  many 
of  us  would  say  that  if  there  is  no  science  of  values  it  is 
because  the  values  of  life  are  so  accessible  to  ordinary 
experience,  observation,  and  inference,  and  knowledge  of 
them  is  so  current  in  human  intercourse,  that  it  requires 
no  science,  no  elaborate  and  recondite  research,  to  give 
us  that  knowledge.  A  reflective  person  may  add,  how- 
ever, that  our  knowledge  of  life's  values  is  often  incom- 
plete and  fragmentary,  and  may  gradually  be  extended 
by  much  the  same  logical  method  as  that  by  which  scien- 
tific exploration  and  description  extend  our  knowledge 
of  the  resources  of  a  continent.  Such  a  person  might 
further  add  that  when  we  pass  from  the  discovery  of 
values,  or  the  question  of  the  good,  to  the  discovery  of 
the  methods  of  conduct  by  which  these  values  are  attained 

"  The  meaning  with  which  I  employ  the  dangerous  term  "common 
sense"  will  be  explained  in  the  last  chapter. 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  SOCIAL  VALUES      163 

and  by  which  their  attainment  is  prevented,  or  the  ques- 
tion of  right  and  wrong,  then  we  must  not  only  approach 
the  problem  in  the  spirit  and  by  the  method  of  science 
but  our  investigations  must  be  extensive  and  recondite. 
After  all,  the  chief  difference  between  ethics  and  other 
sciences  is  the  greater  degree  to  which  in  this  field  every 
intelligent  human  being  is  an  investigator. 

If  the  method  of  appreciation  gave  us  direct  knowledge 
of  the  values  realized  in  the  conscious  states  of  our  asso- 
ciates, that  would  be  an  acceptable  aid  to  sociology  and 
would  make  it  more  scientific,  and  not  less  so.  But  if  we 
had  such  direct  knowledge  of  the  conscious  states  of  asso- 
ciates it  would  seem  that  we  ought  not  to  be  so  often 
cheated  and  deceived  by  the  lies  and  pretenses  of  others. 

While  the  feelings  of  our  associates  cannot  be  directly 
perceived,  yet  their  manifestations  are  perceived,  and  the 
feelings  are  inferred.  Like  electricity  and  many  chemical 
and  vital  processes,  which  cannot  be  directly  observed, 
they  are  known  by  their  immediate  consequences  or  ex- 
pressions, which  are  open  to  perception.  It  is  true  that 
one  who  witnessed  the  manifestations  of  fear,  anger, 
joy,  or  sorrow,  if  he  had  never  experienced  those  states 
of  feeling,  could  only  name  them  without  knowing  their 
inner  essence.  Supposing  him  to  have  the  idea  that  there 
were  states  of  consciousness  corresponding  to  man's 
overt  conduct,  he  could  only  think  of  fear  or  joy  as  that 
state  of  consciousness  which  manifests  itself  in  certain 
peculiar  ways  and  which  often  arises  under  certain  con- 
ditions, and  he  would  miss  entirely  any  knowledge  of 
the  feeling  as  feeling.  But  if  he  has  had  those  feelings, 
then  when  he  recognizes  their  presence  by  the  presence  of 
their  manifestations  and  their  occasions  he  knows  their 


164  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

quality  as  feelings.  It  is  true  that  our  knowledge  of 
the  feeling  value  of  the  activities  and  experiences  of 
others  is  based  upon  the  belief  that  their  feelings  are 
similar  to  those  which  we  ourselves  experience  when 
we  are  under  similar  conditions  and  exhibit  similar  mani- 
festations. If  the  belief  in  this  similarity  is  well-founded 
and  affords  a  valid  basis  for  inference  then  we  know 
something  about  the  feelings  of  a  man  whose  hand  is  in 
the  flames  and  wKolse  face  is  distorted  with  agony. 

And  this  belief  in  the  similarity  of  human  feelings  is 
well-founded.  We  and  our  associates  are  members  of 
one  species,  products  of  a  common  evolution.  From  this 
we  infer,  with  reason,  that  we  inherit  capacities  for  the 
same  types  of  subjective  experience.  And  we  cor- 
roborate the  truth  of  this  inference  with  adequate  experi- 
mental tests.  We  continually  put  the  accuracy  with 
which  we  have  apprehended  the  feelings  of  others  to 
practical  proof.  We  speak  and  act  upon  the  supposition 
that  we  correctly  understand  the  signs  that  our  associates 
have  made  and  they  usually  accept  our  interpretations  as 
correct,  and  are  quite  capable  of  making  us  vividly  aware 
of  it  if  at  any  time  we  are  wrong.  Furthermore,  we 
reveal  our  own  feelings  by  manifestations  similar  to 
those  which  we  observe  in  others,  and  are  continual  wit- 
nesses of  the  degree  of  success  with  which  our  associates 
interpret  those  signs  so  as  to  become  aware  of  the  feel- 
ings which  we  manifest  to  them. 

A  minor  corroboration  of  the  truthfulness  with  which 
we  are  able  to  interpret  the  signs  of  feeling  which  others 
evince,  and  even  to  anticipate  the  qualities  of  feeling 
which  they  will  experience  under  given  conditions  is  in 
the  fact  that  with  respect  to  some  feelings  a  vivid 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  SOCIAL  VALUES      165 

imagination  of  the  conditions  that  evoke  feelings  in 
others  even  evokes  in  us  a  degree  of  the  same  feeling. 

Neither  sympathy  nor  the  trustworthy  and  continually 
tested  conviction  of  the  similarity  of  human  feelings  is 
dependent  upon  utilizing  any  metaphysical  method  or 
theory.  From  the  point  of  view  of  science  it  is  as  futile 
to  engage  in  scholastic  speculation  as  to  whether  we  can 
know  each  other's  subjective  states  as  it  is  to  engage  in 
similar  speculation  as  to  whether  we  can  know  the  exter- 
nal material  world.3  It  may  be  true  that  the  conscious- 
ness of  each  individual  is  a  share  in  the  "organic  unity 
of  the  one  self,"  but  it  is  not  necessary  to  prove  that  doc- 
trine in  order  that  the  smile  of  my  friend  may  be  more 
to  me  than  the  mere  wrinkling  of  his  skin  and  his  tears 
something  more  than  so  much  water.  The  very  existence 
of  society,  as  we  know  it,  is  evidence  of  the  correctness 
of  the  naive  observations  and  inferences  of  normal  men, 
"the  consent  of  the  competent,"  concerning  the  feelings 
of  their  fellows. 

Though  our  observations  and  inferences  concerning 
the  feelings  of  our  fellows  are  in  the  main  correct,  yet 
they  are  not  infallible,  as  they  ought  to  be  if  they  were 
direct  "appreciations"  due  to  the  unity  of  all  conscious- 
ness. We  are  representatives  of  one  species  and  the  off- 
spring of  a  common  physical  evolution,  yet  we  differ 
somewhat  in  temperament  and  disposition,  for  there  is 
organic  variation  in  all  the  higher  species;  and  as 
products  of  social  evolution  we  differ  yet  more.  There  is 
a  universal  sign  language  of  feeling,  common  even  to 
those  of  alien  tongues,  yet  members  of  the  same  house- 

*The  question  as  to  our  knowledge  of  external  material  realities 
is  discussed  in  the  last  chapter  of  this  essay. 


1 66  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

hold  may  be  too  unlike  wholly  to  understand  each  other. 
The  most  prized  experiences  of  some  may  be  in  part 
unintelligable  to  certain  others,  and  that  which  we  most 
hate  we  may  never  wholly  comprehend,  unless  we  hate 
it,  having  disapproved  it  as  present  or  possible  in  our- 
selves. 

But  in  spite  of  our  idiosyncrasies,  by  the  process  of 
association  we  have  developed  to  a  wonderful  degree  the 
art  of  communication,  so  as  to  express  our  thoughts  and 
feelings,  and  to  interpret  the  experiences  of  others  in 
terms  of  our  own.  Man  has  an  insatiable  interest  in  the 
psychic  activities  of  his  associates,  both  for  the  satisfac- 
tion he  takes  in  contemplating,  analyzing,  criticizing,  and 
appreciating  them,  and  also  for  the  practical  necessity  of 
understanding  this  most  active,  helpful  or  harmful,  por- 
tion of  his  environment.  Where  interest  is  strong,  there 
intellectual  power  and  skill  develop;  and  the  skill  of  men 
in  understanding  each  other  is  perhaps  the  highest  every- 
day manifestation  of  intelligence.  Doubtless  it  is  not 
only  an  individual  skill,  but  also  a  biological  adaptation 
developed  by  the  social  necessities  of  the  race.  Desires 
and  purposes  are  not  only  divined  from  the  subtlest 
signs,  but  also  foretold  before  they  are  formed.  And 
even  when  men  deliberately  lie  and  pretend,  employing 
generally  understood  symbols  in  order  to  deceive,  their 
fellow  men  are  skilled  to  discover  not  only  the  meaning 
which  the  deceiver  intends  to  convey,  but  also  the  pres- 
ence of  deception  and  the  motives  of  the  fraud.  It  is 
true  this  skill  in  reading  one  another  breeds  correspond- 
ing skill  in  dissimulation,  but  both  forms  of  skill  are 
tributes  to  the  subtlety  with  which  we  understand  each 
other,  and  interpret  not  merely  words  and  other  con- 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  SOCIAL  VALUES      167 

ventional  symbols,  and  deeds  that  are  intentionally  overt, 
but  also  subtle  revealers  of  emotions,  moods,  and  traits 
which  their  owners  never  meant  to  reveal,  but  endeavored 
to  conceal. 

Many  of  the  signals  from  the  inner  life  which  we 
learn  so  accurately  to  read  are  far  too  subtle  to  be  con- 
ventionalized. Smiles,  frowns,  tones,  and  changes  of  the 
facial  muscles,  too  minute  to  be  described,  are  promptly 
interpreted.  One  reads  a  passage  full  of  subtle  sugges- 
tion, and  by  his  reading  proves  that  he  has  felt  the  sug- 
gestion, and  looking  up  he  sees  in  the  face  of  his  listening 
friend  that  the  friend  has  felt  it  too.  This  is  communion 
of  spirits — author,  reader,  and  friend.  Expressions  of 
voice,  countenance,  and  bearing,  numberless  and  fleeting, 
are  included  in  the  seemingly  inexhaustible  signal  code 
that  reveals  the  rich  variety  of  human  feeling.  They 
are  mediums  for  the  admonishing  or  cheering  influence 
of  the  parent,  friend,  and  lover,  and  instruments  of 
power  in  the  man  of  prestige,  the  orator,  and  the  com- 
mander. Not  tears  and  sighs  alone,  but  the  slight  move- 
ment of  the  eyelid  and  the  almost  insensible  tension  of 
the  person  thrill  the  heart  of  the  observer,  and  awaken 
trust  or  suspicion,  love  or  hate,  fascination  or  contempt, 
as  they  signal  the  presence  of  affective  experiences  which 
the  observer  is  prompt  to  recognize  and  estimate  in  terms 
of  his  own  subjectivity. 

The  metaphysicians  referred  to  object  that  social  phe- 
nomena are  not  only  too  imperfectly  accessible  to  obser- 
vation and  inference,  but  also  too  incapable  of  descrip- 
tion, to  be  successfully  treated  by  the  methods  of  science. 
Yet  a  great  portion  of  the  world's  literature  exhibits  the 
success  with  which  the  emotional  phase  of  human  experi- 


1 68  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

•ence  can  be  described.  The  activities,  including  even  the 
feelings  of  associates,  appear  in  time,  show  recognizable 
resemblances  and  differences  of  manifestation,  and 
appear  under  characteristic  conditions.  That  is  to  say, 
they  appear  in  categories  of  description.  All  this  is 
specifically  denied  by  those  who  declare  that  social 
phenomena  are  incapable  of  scientific  description. 
Nevertheless,  in  the  naive  view  of  science  and  common 
sense  that  is  all  true.  If  in  some  subtler  sense  it  is  not 
true,  if,  for  instance,  voluntary  acts  are,  in  some  meta- 
physical sense  not  caused  and  not  in  time,  then  it  is  not 
in  that  metaphysical  sense  that  sociology  or  any  science, 
uses  the  words  cause  and  time.  For  human  observation 
and  practice  our  acts  and  experiences  are  as  truly  in  those 
categories  as  any  phenomena. 

All  description  is  based  upon  the  inferred  similarity 
of  human  experience.  It  is  true  that  the  possibility  of 
describing  the  emotional  states  of  associates,  so  that  what 
is  subjective  to  one  becomes  in  a  sense  objective  to  others, 
is  dependent  on  the  inferred  similarity  of  the  experi- 
ence of  different  individuals.  But  it  is  no  more  depend- 
ent upon  it  than  all  "description"  "Red"  is  the  name 
of  a  subjective  experience  (referred  to  an  objective 
cause).  Descriptive  words  like  "long"  and  "heavy"  are 
as  really  names  of  subjective  experience  as  words  like 
"angry"  and  "afraid."  Concepts  and  propositions  exist 
only  in  consciousness,  and  all  description,  indeed  all  lan- 
guage, is  based  upon  the  supposed  similarity  of  human 
experience — similarity  of  perception  and  conception  in 
case  of  material  phenomena,  similarity  of  affective  states 
in  case  of  the  values.  If  it  is  still  objected  that  the 
attempt  to  communicate  knowledge  of  values  is  more 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  SOCIAL  VALUES      169 

liable  to  misunderstanding  than  other  description,  because 
we  differ  in  our  feelings  more  than  in  our  cognitive 
processes,  we  could  afford  to  admit,  li  necessary,  that 
there  is  a  difference  of  degree;  but  any  difference  on  this 
account  would  be  only  in  degree,  and  may  not  be  even 
that.  Color  blindness  that  invalidates  the  universality 
and  publicity  of  sense-perception  may  be  quite  as  com- 
mon as  any  equally  wide  departure  from  the  normal  in 
the  great  common  human  feelings.  To  assume  uni- 
formity of  conception  with  reference  to  the  supposedly 
public,  scientific,  and  purely  cognitive,  even  among  ex- 
perts in  description  and  argument,  may  occasion  serious 
misunderstanding  as  often  as  it  does  to  attribute  to  men 
emotional  4  similarity.  Indeed,  when  men  are  looked  at 
in  broad  classes  in  a  way  to  suit  the  purposes  of 
sociology,  individual  emotional  idiosyncrasies  become 
negligible. 

We  have  just  pointed  out  that  all  description,  indeed 
all  conversation,  is  dependent  on  the  inferred  and  proved 
similarity  between  the  conscious  states  of  associates,  the 
description  of  value-experiences  no  more  so  than  the 
description  of  rocks  and  trees,  butterflies,  and  flowers. 
Now  we  are  to  add  that  the  knowledge  and  description 
of  our  own  past  or  future  value-experiences  is  of  prac- 
tically the  same  kind  as  our  knowledge  of  the  experiences 
of  others.  We  know  our  own  remembered  or  anticipated 
joys  and  sorrows  descriptively,  not  directly  nor  by  meta- 
physical appreciation.  We  can  recall  and  state  the  fact 
that  under  certain  remembered  conditions  we  had  a  good 

4  Using  the  word  "emotional"  in  the  broad  sense  to  include  not 
only  the  feeling  side  of  instinct  but  also  pleasure-pain  and  the  ap- 
preciation of  values. 


1 70    *         SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

experience  whose  value  is  of  a  well-known  kind.  But 
in  so  doing  we  do  not  have  that  experience,  we  only 
describe  it.  We  can  plan  in  anticipation  of  good  experi- 
ence— of  well-known  kinds  that  are  yet  to  be.  We  can 
recognize  what  has  caused  or  destroyed  our  happiness 
in  the  past  and  arrange  the  causes  of  future  satisfactions. 
But  when  we  recall  the  fact  of  past  happiness  we  do  not 
have  the  past  happiness.  Instead,  its  recollection  may 
give  us  present  pain  if  its  cause  is  lost  and  the  departed 
wealth  or  companionship  contrasts  with  present  poverty 
or  loneliness.  Or,  if  we  remember  the  fact  of  past  pov- 
erty and  loneliness  we  cannot  bring  back  the  past 
suffering,  and  to  recall  it  may  give  a  present  satisfaction, 
for  we  do  not  recreate  the  pain  of  poverty  and  loneliness 
when  we  remember  and  describe  the  past  reality.  But 
neither  do  we  recreate  a  tree  that  stands  no  more,  when 
we  describe  the  tree.  And  "in  a  practical  way  we  have 
a  memory  of  affective  experiences  as  genuinely  as  we 
have  in  case  of  ideas.  We  can  tell  what  affective  tones 
belong  to  vivid  experiences.  But  our  ability  to  reinstate 
the  original  affective  tone  with  the  cognitive  memory  of 
the  event  is  extremely  defective."  5 

To  summarize,  we  have  developed  a  subtle  and  effec- 
tive technique  for  communicating  to  each  other  a  knowl- 
edge of  our  feelings.  The  description  of  feelings  is 
dependent  on  the  well  proved  similarity  of  human  experi- 
ence but  so  also  is  all  description,  indeed  all  communica- 
tion whatsoever.  Feeling,  or  value,  is  always  an  element 
in  an  experience,  all  of  which  except  the  feeling  element 
every  one  recognizes  as  describable.  This  by  itself  suf- 

*  James  R.  Angell,  Psychology,  312.  Henry  Holt  &  Co.,  New 
York,  1908. 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  SOCIAL  VALUES      171 

fices  to  make  the  feeling  itself  describable  in  the  sense  in 
which  electricity  is  describable.  It  makes  it  possible  to 
name  the  values,  to  tell  the  conditions  under  which  they 
are  experienced  and  the  manifestations  by  which  they  are 
accompanied.  If  we  have  any  knowledge  of  the  world 
in  which  we  live  we  must  proceed  as  if  appearance  in 
some  way  corresponded  with  reality,  and  so  saying,  we 
say  that  some  things  make  men  sad  and  others  make  them 
joyous,  and  that  anger,  terror,  joy  and  sadness  make 
men  behave  in  vividly  contrasting  ways.  If  this  were 
all,  we  could  name  our  neighbors'  feeling,  affirm  its 
presence,  tell  its  time,  its  place,  its  occasion  and  its  con- 
sequences. But  this  is  not  all;  we  are  not  confined  to 
such  knowledge  about  the  feelings  of  others  as  we  have 
about  electricity.  By  virtue  of  our  own  similar  experi- 
ences we  know  their  inner  tang,  in  the  same  way  that 
we  know  our  own  past  joys  and  sorrows.  And  if  we 
know  all  this  concerning  the  feelings  of  our  associates, 
then  they  are  sufficiently  open  to  observation  and  descrip- 
tion. 

All  great  and  difficult  problems  have,  in  their  turn, 
been  treated  by  the  method  of  metaphysical  speculation, 
until  one  by  one  many  of  them  have  proved  accessible 
to  the  methods  of  science.  Sociology  is  the  attempt  to 
reach  by  the  methods  of  science  one  more  class  of  prob- 
lems, namely,  those  pertaining  to  the  life  lived  by  man 
in  society — where  alone  the  life  of  man  becomes  more 
than  bestial — the  values  which  that  life  contains,  and  the 
method  of  their  attainment. 

We  are  often  told  that  what  is  is  matter  for  science, 
but  what  ought  to  be  is  matter  for  philosophy.  Upon 
this  point  the  position  here  offered  for  consideration  is 


172  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

as  follows :  The  good  and  evil  realized  in  human  experi- 
ence are  a  part  of  what  is;  and  the  causation  by  which 
these  values  are  attained  and  increased,  or  forfeited  and 
lost,  is  as  truly  a  matter  for  natural  science  as  the  con- 
ditions under  which  crops  may  be  raised  or  insects  ex- 
terminated. 

Our  views  of  the  "meanings"  and  "values"  of  things 
are  not  to  be  deduced  from  any  metaphysical  theory  con- 
cerning "the  final  goal"  of  the  universe  "reduced  to 
unity."  On  the  contrary,  our  knowledge  of  good  and 
evil  is  actually  derived  from  experience  and  observation. 
If  any  one  were  able  by  some  other  process  than  obser- 
vation and  comparison  of  phenomena,  that  is,  by  other 
than  scientific  method  to  arrive  at  a  verifiable  view  of 
the  final  goal  of  creation  from  which  to  deduce  teachings 
concerning  the  values  involved  in  human  life,  then  we 
should  be  glad  to  have  him  do  so.  But  efforts  of  that 
kind  have  led  to  dispute,  uncertainty,  error,  and  illusion. 
So  long  as  the  method  of  observation  is  open  to  us  we 
propose  not  to  depend  on  deductions  from  merely  specu- 
lative views  as  to  the  goal  of  being.  We  admit  that  our 
results  will  apply  only  within  the  sphere  of  human  obser- 
vation. But  as  human  beings,  not  to  say  as  sociologists, 
we  are  content  to  understand  the  worth  and  meaning  of 
Life  to  human  beings,  and  within  the  realm  of  human 
observation  and  experience,  and  not  to  stretch  out  after 
the  meanings  involved  in  a  "total  unity  of  creation" 
which  is  an  assumption  the  very  conception  of  which,  to 
say  nothing  of  its  proof,  is  beyond  the  power  of  the 
intelligence  that  has  evolved  upon  this  planet. 

The  values  that  are  disclosed  to  human  comprehension 
exist  in  human  experience  and,  by  the  method  above  de- 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  SOCIAL  VALUES       173 

scribed,  the  experience  of  each  can  be  more  or  less 
perfectly  known  by  his  associates.  These  values  are 
phenomena  of  consciousness,  true  'phenomena,  and  so 
really  matter  for  science.  As  we  saw  in  the  foregoing 
chapter,  material  things  have  value  only  in  a  secondary 
and  derivative  sense,  in  proportion  as  they  are  means  of 
promoting  valuable  experience,  which  alone  has  value 
for  its  own  sake.  Value  is  a  phase  or  element  or  quality 
in  every  state  of  consciousness  which  men  can  pronounce 
good  in  itself.  Accordingly,  the  question,  "What  is  of 
worth?"  is  equivalent  to  the  question,  "What  values  do 
men  discover  in  actual  experience?"  The  answer  to  this 
question  can  be  reached  only  empirically  and  is  deter- 
mined by  the  concurrent  testimony  of  the  competent. 

It  is  true  that  the  only  competent  witnesses  concerning 
the  value  of  a  given  kind  of  experience  are  those  wha 
have  had  such  experience,  but  it  is  equally  true  that  the 
only  competent  witnesses  concerning  a  kind  of  external 
phenomena  are  those  who  have  observed  it.  No  indi- 
vidual is  a  competent  witness  concerning  external  phe- 
nomena that  he  has  not  observed,  any  more  than  con- 
cerning values  that  he  has  not  experienced.  Man  is  the 
measure  of  all  things — that  is,  of  all  experience — only 
when  he  has  had  all  kinds  of  experience.  But  each  can 
observe  his  own  good  and  evil  experiences  and,  in  the 
sense  explained  above,  he  can  describe  them.  Some 
kinds  of  values  are  so  universal  that  practically  all  men 
are  competent  to  testify  concerning  them.  Other  kinds 
of  value  are  less  nearly  universal,  yet  those  who  have 
experienced  them  can  sufficiently  describe  them  so  that 
others,  who  have  never  had  the  like,  can  desire  them 
and  be  taught  to  seek  them.  Those  are  the  most  com- 


174  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

petent  witnesses  concerning  human  values  whose  experi- 
ence has  been  richest,  especially  in  those  types  of  worth- 
experience  which  are  higher  than  others  by  common 
consent  of  those  who  have  had  these  particular  types  of 
experience  together  with  the  widest  range  of  other  worth- 
experiences  with  which  to  compare  them. 

What  in  human  experience  is  of  worth  is  a  question 
of  fact.  As  the  foregoing  chapter  pointed  out  at  length 
there  are  numerous  kinds  of  worth,  and  an  adequate  con- 
ception of  them  involves  the  concept  of  a  proportioned 
harmony  of  these  elements  into  a  whole  thought  of  the 
worth  of  life.  To  arrive  at  such  a  thought  of  life  is  an  in- 
tellectual achievement.  The  method  of  this  achievement 
is  not  deduction  from  a  concept  of  the  ''final  goal  of  crea- 
tion reduced  to  an  absolute  unity/'  but  is  induction  from 
knowledge  of  human  experience,  whether  it  be  the  uncon- 
scious induction  from  a  narrow  range  of  experience, 
which  may  be  only  prejudice,  however  high-sounding  the 
phrases  in  which  it  is  arrayed,  or  whether  it  be  a  con- 
scious induction  from  a  wide  range  of  human  experience, 
which  is  as  much  as  to  say,  a  fruit  of  scientific  method. 

It  may  be  questioned  whether  in  this  day  of  applied 
sciences  any  science  confines  itself  to  the  question, 
What  is?  and  ignores  the  question,  What  ought  to 
be?  But  even  if  every  other  science  be  confined  to  the 
questions,  what  is  and  how  comes  it  to  be,  still  there 
is  a  special  reason  why  sociology,  as  science,  cannot  be 
so  confined  and  must  proceed  to  ask  what  is  good,  and 
how  does  the  good  come  to  be?  And  this  reason  is  that 
the  good  and  the  bad  are  essential  elements  in  the  objec- 
tive realities  studied  by  sociology,  and  by  no  antecedent 
science. 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  SOCIAL  VALUES      175 

Therefore,  it  seems  to  me  that  those  sociologists  8  are 
quite  wrong  who  admit  that  it  is  true  for  sociology,  as 
for  other  sciences,  that  pure  science,  since  it  has  to  do 
only  with  what  is,  therefore  has  nothing  to  do  with  what 
ought  to  be,  and  nothing  to  do  with  differences  between 
better  and  worse.  Good  and  bad  are  essential  elements 
in  the  description  of  what  is.  The  good  and  the  bad 
nowhere  exist  as  abstractions,  but  always  as  elements  in 
or  phases  of  concrete  experience-activities  which,  in  so 
far  as  they  are  more  than  biological,  or  purely  instinctive, 
are  social  products.  The  social  activities  cannot  be  truth- 
fully, that  is,  scientifically,  described  without  including 
reference  to  the  value  elements  which  they  contain. 

The  tattooing  and  tom-toms  of  the  Polynesian,  and  the 
grand  opera  and  millinery  of  the  Parisian,  as  material 
phenomena,  are  social  realities  only  in  the  most  super- 
ficial sense.  The  essential  social  realities  are  the  activi- 
ties and  experiences  which  are  manifested  in  these 
material  products.  The  social  activities  revealed  in 
tattooing  and  tom-toms,  grand  opera  and  millinery  cannot 
be  adequately  described  without  reference  to  the  esthetic 
values  which  they  contain,  and  to  the  social  values  which 
they  contain  as  display  activities.  The  value  element  in 
the  consolations,  as  well  as  in  the  terrors  of  religions, 
both  savage  and  civilized,  is  an  essential  part  of  the 
description  of  religions.  Slavery  cannot  be  truly  and 
adequately  described  by  one  who  ignores  the  suffering 
which  it  has  contained.  The  penologist  deals  with  nega- 
tive values  inflicted  by  crime  and  suffered  as  deterrent 
penalty.  The  reformer  and  educator  have  it  for  their 
business  to  promote  positive  values.  These  are  illustra- 

"Ward,  Pure  Sociology,  4,  5. 


176  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

tions  of  the  general  fact  that  goodness  and  badness  are 
elements  in  social  activities  which  sociology  cannot  over- 
look. This  science  attempts  to  describe  and  account  for 
the  varieties  of  prevalent  and  socially  caused  experience- 
activity.  And  in  differentiating  these  varieties  of 
experience  the  different  value  elements  are  a  determining 
character.  They  are  to  sociology  not  unlike  what  de- 
grees of  cephalization  are  to  zoology,  or  spectral  lines  to 
astrophysics — critical  elements  in  the  description  of  the 
phenomena  compared.  Sociology  sets  out,  having  laid 
aside  every  preconceived  notion  of  "the  good"  formed  by 
speculating  with  closed  eyes,  and  opens  its  eyes  to  see 
what  men  in  their  experience  have  called  good,  what 
they  have  found  in  experience  that  to  them  was  good, 
to  discover  if  there  be  any  "consensus  of  the  competent" 
in  the  recognition  of  good  experience  as  there  is  a 
"consensus  of  the  competent5'  in  sense  perception,  and 
if  there  be  a  general  consensus  only  among  men  of  a 
given  range  of  experience,  then  to  discover  what  is  good 
to  those  who  have  the  widest  range  of  experience  and 
the  most  highly  developed  powers. 

These  experiences  are  of  great  variety,  and  the  good 
is  found  to  be  no  one  kind  of  experience  but  life,  made 
up  of,  or  including,  those  compounded  and  concatenated 
experiences  in  which  the  value  element  is  found.  Good- 
ness, thus  conceived,  is  unique  and  incommensurable 
with  anything  else,  and  undefinable  in  terms  of  anything 
but  itself.  It  is  no  more  describable  than  "red,"  that  is, 
being  an  experience  element  it  is  intelligable  only  to  those 
who  have  had  such  experience.  At  the  same  time  it  is  as 
cognizable  as  "red."  This  goodness  is  the  element  in 
experience  which  makes  it  a  thing  desirable  for  its  own 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  SOCIAL  VALUES      177 

sake  and  contrasts  with  the  badness  which  makes  an 
experience  shunned  for  its  own  sake. 

In  all  of  the  foregoing,  the  problem  of  "the  good"  has 
been  treated  as  one  clearly  distinguished  from  the  prob- 
lem of  "the  right/'  Early  in  our  discussion  of  values 
it  was  pointed  out  that  there  are  two  aspects  under  which 
human  activity  must  be  considered.  It  must  be  consid- 
ered both  with  reference  to  the  values  which  it  contains, 
and  with  reference  to  the  other  values  which  it  con- 
ditions. When  considered  with  reference  to  the  values 
which  it  contains,  our  activity  is  called  experience  and  is 
pronounced  "good  or  bad"  in  itself.  When  considered 
with  reference  to  the  other  values  which  it  conditions, 
our  activity  is  called  conduct  and  is  pronounced  "right 
or  wrong."  The  words  "good  and  bad,"  therefore,  when 
used  in  their  primary  or  ultimate  sense  refer  to  experi- 
ence as  judged  by  the  values  which  it  contains.  These 
words  good  and  bad  are  used  also  in  a  secondary  or 
derivative  sense  as  equivalent  to  right  and  wrong,  and 
as  referring  to  conduct  judged  not  by  the  values  which 
it  contains  but  by  the  results  which  it  conditions.  How- 
ever, there  is  no  ultimate  value,  no  ultimate  goodness 
or  badness  in  anything  that  is  considered  purely  as  a 
means  to  an  end,  not  even  in  our  own  activity  regarded 
purely  as  the  condition  of  values  in  human  life,  and 
essential  to  their  attainment. 

Before  we  can  form  intelligent  judgments  of  the 
right  we  need  to  have  an  adequate  view  of  that  rich  and 
varied  and  proportioned  concept  of  the  good  which  we 
have  attempted  to  discuss.  Certain  limited  forms  of 
right,  like  gratitude  and  loyalty  to  friends,  have,  it  is 
true,  a  beauty  of  their  own,  a  power  to  evoke  enthusi* 


178  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

asm  and  desire,  even  in  the  absence  of  judgments  about 
the  consequences  of  the  acts.  And  certain  forms  of 
wrong,  like  cruelty  to  friends,  similarly  invite  instinctive 
repugnance  and  disgust.  But  the  very  existence  of 
instinctive  attraction  for  the  right  and  repugnance  for 
the  wrong  proves  that  there  is  a  purpose  in  the  acts 
instinctively  preferred;  for  no  instinct  is  developed  that 
has  not  a  biological  purpose  or  function.  The  purpose  or 
function  of  all  right  conduct,  and  of  such  instinctive 
preference  for  right  as  we  possess,  is  to  promote  indi- 
vidual or  group  life.  Life  contains  the  good,  to  which 
right  ministers  as  a  vassal  to  his  lord.  And  when 
developed  moral  judgments  carry  us  above  and  beyond 
the  promptings  of  mere  instinctive  preference  and  repug- 
nance it  is  because  ethical  leaders  and  the  folk  sense  have 
recognized  the  adaptation  of  conduct  to  secure  desired 
ends  which  are  included  in  the  fullness  of  life. 

Ethical  instruction  has  commonly  neglected  the  prob- 
lem of  the  good  because  it  has  been  absorbed  in  trying 
to  get  people  to  live  up  to  the  moral  requirements 
already  recognized,  and  not  in  trying  to  improve  the 
-ethical  code  of  the  group  by  discovering  more  fully  the 
good  of  life  and  the  method  of  its  attainment.  Thus, 
individual  endeavor  and  the  folk  life  have  busied  them- 
selves with  efforts  to  get  the  good  and  escape  the  evil 
that  is  already  understood,  but  not  with  effort  to  get  a 
more  adequate  vision  of  the  good  of  life. 

Moreover,  since  instinctive  prompting  of  every  kind 
is  ignorant  of  its  function  and  regards  only  the  pleasures 
•which  instinctive  activity  contains,  and  not  the  remoter 
good  or  evil  which  instinctive  activity  conditions  and 
•which  will  be  realized  at  a  future  time  or  by  other  per- 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  SOCIAL  VALUES 

sons  than  the  actor,  therefore  ethical  instruction  has 
been  chiefly  engaged  in  urging  men  to  pay  heed  to  the 
tightness  and  wrongness  of  their  acts  and  not  to  their 
pleasantness.  Thus  it  is  that  ethical  teachers  are  prone 
to  regard  right  and  wrong  as  more  important  than  the 
good  contained  in  experience.  It  is  more  important  than 
the  good  contained  in  the  present  experience  of  the  actor. 
But  it  is  this  present  good  or  evil  plus  the  good  or  evil 
contained  in  future  experience  of  the  actor  and  in  the  ex- 
perience of  others  which  is  conditioned  by  his  conduct 
that  alone  makes  conduct  right  or  wrong.  And  progress 
in  our  judgments  of  right  and  wrong  has  always  de- 
pended and  must  continue  to  depend  on  judgments  of 
good  and  evil  as  distinguished  from  judgments  of  right 
and  wrong.  Judgments  of  right  and  wrong  prescribe 
the  method  of  attaining  the  good  and  of  preventing  the 
evil  which  must  be  perceived  before  the  method  of  attain- 
ing the  one  and  of  preventing  the  other  can  be  dis- 
covered. 

To  say  that  conduct  considered  as  right  and  wrong  is 
wholly  secondary  to  experience  considered  as  good  or 
evil  is  not  detracting  from  the  importance  of  conduct, 
for,  though  its  importance  is  wholly  secondary  and  de- 
rivative, yet  it  has  importance  limited  only  by  the  impor- 
tance of  the  end  which  it  affects.  And  the  importance 
of  a  certain  act  may  be  greater  as  conduct  than  as- 
experience,  that  is,  it  may  affect  values  greater  than 
those  which  it  contains. 

It  is  no  wonder,  therefore,  that  ethical  teachers  have 
spoken  as  if  it  were  conduct  itself  which  was  ultimately 
good  or  bad.  In  some  of  the  most  noted  instances  they 
have  even  declared  that  there  is  no  problem  of  "the 


180  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

good"  aside  from  the  problem  of  conduct.  The  fact,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  that  we  can  by  no  means  take  it  for 
granted  that  the  degraded  or  undeveloped  or  any  who 
require  moral  instruction,  even  if  they  knew  perfectly 
"what  is  right/'  would  have  in  mind  anything  like  an 
adequate  answer  to  the  question  "what  is  good.'*  The 
only  way  to  advance  our  knowledge  of  the  right,  and 
the  only  rational  way  to  make  the  idea  of  the  right  more 
winsome  and  propulsive  than  it  is  to  untutored  instinct 
is  to  show  that  it  is  absolutely  subordinate  to  the  good. 
Inexperience  does  not  know  that  it  is  not  in  particular 
pleasures,  but  in  the  zestful  exercise  of  our  powers  and 
in  the  deep  tide  of  lasting  social  and  personal  satisfac- 
tions and  in  the  harmony  of  life  which  omits  no  pleas- 
ure but  includes  each  in  due  subordination  to  life's  ideal 
completeness,  that  our  true  fulfillment  consists.  Pain- 
fully men  struggle  for  vanities  and  pitifully  they  sell 
their  birthright  for  a  mess  of  savory  steaming  pottage, 
soon  devoured.  Ruefully  they  gaze  upon  the  ashes  that 
fill  their  hands,  ashes  into  which  the  apples  of  Sodom 
crumbled  at  their  touch.  From  the  time  when  Solomon, 
having  taken  every  "pleasure"  that  his  royal  power 
could  seize,  cried  in  the  end,  "Vanity  of  vanities,  all  is 
vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit,"  down  to  Goethe  and  his 
Faust,  the  succeeding  generations  of  men,  impelled  by 
the  promptings  of  untutored  instinct,  have  missed  the 
real  worth  of  life. 

It  has  been  a  great  loss  that  ethical  instruction  has 
been  so  almost  exclusively  devoted  to  teaching  what  is 
right  and  so  little  to  teaching  what  is  good.  There  has 
been  some  effort  to  teach  what  is  disappointing  and  bitter 
but  wholly  inadequate  teaching  as  to  what  is  good  and 


KNOWLEDGE  OF  SOCIAL  VALUES      181 

satisfying.  Education  should  consist  largely  in  the 
effort  to  initiate  the  young  into  the  good  and  satisfying 
experiences  of  life.  Moreover,  the  deliberate  organizing 
of  community  life  for  happiness  rather  than  for  money- 
making,  for  all  the  various  forms  of  joyous  and  mutu- 
ally helpful  activity  is  something  in  which  we  have  made 
notable  beginnings,  but  beginnings  only,  and  in  which  we 
still  have  very  far  to  go. 

The  primary  and  fundamental  problem  lying  at  the 
basis  of  all  ethical  progress  is  the  question  what  is  good, 
what  notion  are  we  to  form  of  the  end  of  all  rational 
endeavor.  The  answer  to  that  question  is  a  comprehen- 
sive concept  including  in  harmonious  proportion  all  the 
elements  of  value  discoverable  in  human  experience. 
They  are  discoverable  only  in  and  by  expanding  human 
experience.  Their  existence  and  nature  and  interrela- 
tionship are  questions  of  fact,  questions  not  to  be  settled 
by  metaphysical  speculation,  but  by  living,  and  by  ac- 
quaintance with  the  experiences  of  our  fellow  men,  they 
are  questions  to  be  settled  by  the  methods  of  experiment 
and  comparison,  aided  by  description  resulting  in  a  con- 
sensus of  the  competent. 


CHAPTER  IX 

THE    SOCIAL    ORIGIN    OF    MORAL    CODES    AND    THE 

NATURALISTIC  INTERPRETATION   OF  DUTY,  OR 

THE  PROBLEM  OF  RIGHT  AND  WRONG 

The  study  of  comparative  sociology  reveals  no  more 
impressive  fact  than  the  amazing  incongruities  between 
the  conscience  codes  of  different  peoples,  and  even  of  the 
same  people  at  different  stages  of  progress. 

We  cannot  say  that  Abraham  was  less  truly  conscien- 
tious than  we  because  he  practiced  concubinage  and  at 
one  stage  of  his  life  believed  in  the  duty  of  human  sac- 
rifice. The  customs  of  wife-purchase,  slavery,  and  pri- 
vate war  that  prevailed  among  our  own  ancestors  were 
not  the  conduct  of  conscienceless  people.  Plato  himself 
could  not  conceive  of  the  absence  of  slavery,  even  in  an 
ideal  republic.  Very  recently  many  of  our  most  charm- 
ing and  most  Christian  fellow  citizens  regarded  slavery 
as  a  divine  institution.  And  to  note  a  smaller  matter, 
the  New  England  parson  of  two  generations  ago  had 
to  resist  the  hospitality  of  his  parishioners  if  he  wished 
to  return  from  a  round  of  parish  calls  quite  sober.  It  is 
not  necessary,  in  order  to  illustrate  the  divergencies  be- 
tween conscience  codes,  to  detail  the  abhorrent  vagaries 
exhibited  by  the  practices  which  savages  approve;  we 
have  only  to  remember  the  past  of  our  own  society. 

Those  accepted  customs  of  our  ancestors  which  now 
seem  to  us  so  immoral,  and  even  the  barbaric  customs  of 

182 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     183 

savages,  do  not  indicate  that  they  had  no  moral  code, 
nor  that  such  practices  violated  the  moral  codes  which 
they  had.  The  aged  savage  summons  his  next  of  kin 
to  perform  the  customary  act  of  parricide  and  after  an 
affectionate  leave-taking  the  final  blow  is  struck.  The 
savage  and  barbarous  peoples  have  moral  codes,  some- 
times extremely  exacting  in  their  requirements  and 
enforced  by  barbarous  punishments,  by  the  sanctions  of 
group  opinion,  by  fear  of  supernatural  powers  and  by 
the  ingrained  sentiments  of  the  actors  themselves.  In 
some  instances  the  savages  would  find  it  as  impossible 
to  approve  our  morality  as  we  do  to  approve  theirs.  The 
Eskimos  would  regard  our  wars  as  incredibly  wicked. 
And  savages  who  sometimes  starve  rather  than  violate 
a  food  taboo,  and  who  divide  their  scanty  resources  on 
rules  of  strict  morality,  would  regard  some  of  the  pro- 
visions of  our  "common  law,"  so  largely  devised  for 
''keeping  the  ins  in  and  the  outs  out,"  and  our  entrenched 
luxury  just  around  the  corner  from  the  penury  of 
squalid  tenements  as  heinous.  "What,"  they  say,  "can 
these  men  belong  to  the  same  tribe?" 

Our  ethical  code  not  only  has  changed  but  at  various 
points  is  still  changing  and  to  change.  A  generation  ago 
men  prominent  in  religious  work,  who  were  regarded  by 
themselves  and  by  their  associates  as  conscientious,  en- 
gaged in  business  practices  which  would  not  now  be  en- 
gaged in  nor  countenanced  by  their  sons.  New  rules 
concerning  the  acceptance  of  rebates,  and  other  matters 
have  been  introduced  into  the  business  game.  It  is  not 
necessary  to  infer  that  the  younger  generation  is  com- 
posed of  more  conscientious  men,  but  only  that  social 
evolution  has  been  in  progress. 


184  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

A  few  centuries  ago  an  ambitious  Dane  would  say  to 
his  neighbors:  "Come,  I  have  a  good  boat,  let  us  sail 
to  a  village  down  the  coast  and  burn  it,  carry  off  the 
fairest  of  the  women,  pillage  the  church,  plunder  the 
houses,  and  live  all  the  rest  of  our  days  in  comfort  and 
become,  besides,  the  most  respected  men  of  this  region." 
And  after  the  exploit  they  would  return  to  their  admir- 
ing friends  singing  of  their  own  glory  as  "wolves"  and 
"sea  thieves."  The  time  will  come  when  any  great  war 
will  be  as  impossible  as  it  now  would  be  in  peaceful  Den- 
mark to  carry  out  such  a  project  as  that  of  the  vikings. 
Yet  it  was  but  yesterday  that  Christendom  regarded  the 
right  of  possession  by  conquest  as  beyond  question,  and 
approved  that  nation  as  most  admirable  which  enacted 
on  the  grandest  scale  the  infamies  of  war.  It  is  not  too 
much  to  anticipate  that  our  descendants  will  look  upon 
the  ethical  code  that  measures  business  success  by  acqui- 
sition rather  than  by  production  much  as  we  now  regard 
the  code  of  the  vikings. 

THE  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  LAW 

Conscience  codes  are  as  typical  and  characteristic 
products  of  social  evolution  as  languages  or  political 
systems.  This  truth  is  illustrated  not  only  by  the  fact 
that  conscience  codes  vary  from  group  to  group,  as 
languages  and  political  systems  do,  and  progress  from 
age  to  age,  but  also  by  the  fact  that  "the  ethics  of  amity" 
were  long  felt  to  be  binding  only  in  the  treatment  of 
fellow  members  of  the  same  group  while  "the  ethics  of 
enmity"  applied  to  outsiders.  Throughout  the  longer 
part  of  social  evolution  all  manner  of  deceit,  ravaging, 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     185 

and  murder  has  been  looked  upon  as  being  as  truly 
glorious  when  practiced  on  victims  outside  the  group  as 
it  was  reprehensible  when  perpetrated  upon  a  fellow 
member  within  the  group.  A  moral  code,  instead  of 
being  a  universal  requirement  applicable  to  the  treat- 
ment of  all  mankind,  was  first  the  requirement  devised 
by  a  group,  and  inculcated  and  enforced  by  a  group  for 
the  benefit  of  that  group  and  its  members.  When  it 
came  to  be  regarded  as  expressing  the  will  of  God  it 
was  generally  the  will  of  a  tribal  God  or  Gods  who, 
while  demanding  justice  and  mercy  in  the  treatment  of 
fellow  clansmen,  rejoiced  in  the  utmost  barbarities  when 
they  were  inflicted  outside  the  circle  of  group  partisan- 
ship. 

No  man  is  born  with  a  conscience  any  more  than  he 
is  born  with  a  language.  Though  every  normal  person 
is  born  with  capacity  to  acquire  both  a  language  and  a 
conscience.  One  will  acquire  the  conscience  of  a  group 
in  which  he  has  membership  as  he  will  acquire  the  lan- 
guage of  a  group  in  which  he  has  membership.  A  bar- 
barian, or  the  child  of  a  barbarian,  is  as  capable  of 
acquiring  a  Christian  conscience  as  of  learning  the  Eng- 
lish language.  As  many  people  have  opportunity  to 
learn  only  a  debased  and  corrupted  speech,  so  also  there 
are  many  who  never  have  opportunity  to  acquire  a  nor- 
mal conscience. 

As  two  persons,  if  they  could  grow  up  from  childhood 
with  no  other  society,  would  begin  the  formation  of  a 
language,  so  also  it  may  be  believed  that  they  would 
begin  the  formation  of  a  conscience,  though  the  latter 
process  would  be  greatly  impeded  and  perhaps  prevented 
if  there  were  no  disinterested  bystanders  to  judge  their 


1 86  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

treatment  of  each  other.  As  we  have  inherited  from 
generations  of  sociable  ancestors  capacity  for  speech, 
which,  nevertheless,  does  not  determine  whether  our 
speech  shall  be  English,  French,  Greek,  or  Choctaw,  so 
also  we  have  inherited  capacity  for  conscience  though  it 
does  not  determine  whether  it  shall  be  the  conscience  of 
a  Christian,  a  viking,  or  a  Turk. 

Conscience  has  its  roots  in  reason  which  discerns  the 
relation  between  causes  and  effects,  between  conduct  and 
its  consequences.  The  victim  recognizes  what  hurts  him. 
The  bystander  recognizes  the  injury  and  its  cause  and 
says :  "If  such  conduct  is  allowed  to  continue  in  the  tribe 
I  may  be  the  next  to  suffer.  Such  acts  must  be  repressed. " 
The  chieftain  and  the  patriarch  recognize  remoter  con- 
nections between  actions  and  their  effects  that  tend  to 
weaken  and  disintegrate  the  group.  They  recognize  not 
only  injurious  deeds  but  also  that  conduct  which  must  be 
required  if  there  is  to  be  food  enough  for  all,  if  there  are 
to  be  order,  comfort,  and  protection.  Ruling  classes 
recognize  the  conduct  necessary  to  secure  their  own 
privileges  and  often  succeed  in  loading  on  the  con- 
sciences of  men  burdens  which  they  themselves  do  not 
touch  with  a  finger.  But  in  general  the  group  solidarity 
is  such  that  on  the  whole  the  group  code  is  far  better 
than  none  for  all  the  members.  However,  there  has 
never  yet  been  a  group  that  did  not  have  some  accepted 
customs  that  were  bad  for  it.  The  conscience  code  is 
gradually  improved,  as  in  the  process  of  social  evolution 
the  hard  lessons  of  experience  are  rubbed  into  the  folk 
sense,  or  as  socially-minded  prophets  and  seers  discover 
the  conditions  upon  which  the  life  which  is  at  once  social 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     187 

and  individual  can  avoid  blight  and  decay  and  can  realize 
its  possibilities  of  good. 

But  reason  alone  does  not  suffice  to  give  us  conscience. 
A  conscience  code  is  suffused  with  feeling.  Emotions  of 
instinctive  altruism  as  well  as  of  prudence  move  the  dis- 
interested bystander,  and  prompt  the  social-minded 
patriarch  and  prophet  to  feel  and  act  upon  the  judgments 
which  reason  passes  upon  the  consequences  of  conduct. 
Moreover,  anger  and  esthetic  discrimination  are  instinc- 
tive reactions  included  in  our  inborn  capacity  for  the 
development  of  conscience.  Both  the  victim  and  the 
sympathetic  bystander  are  incensed  at  wrong.  The  in- 
stinct to  combat  and  destroy,  the  emotional  phase  of 
which  is  anger,  is  aroused  when  reason  has  identified 
injurious  conduct.  And  the  instinct  to  approach  or  to 
be  repelled,  felt  either  as  repugnance  and  disgust  or  as 
esthetic  appreciation,  applies  not  only  to  material  things 
but  also  to  human  beings  and  their  acts ; *  to  our  own 
acts  as  well  as  to  those  of  our  associates.  And  when 
these  feelings  gather  about  a  judgment  passed  upon  a 
type  of  conduct  judgment  and  feeling  together  make  up 
a  complex  reaction  tendency,  an  established  sentiment, 
and  of  such  sentiments  conscience  codes  are  composed. 

These  facts  account  for  the  rise  of  a  conscience  code 
in  any  human  group.  But  it  is  not  necessary  to  recapitu- 
late this  wholfc  process  in  the  experience  of  every  indi- 
vidual who  becomes  characterized  by  the  group  con- 
science, any  more  than  it  is  necessary  in  learning  a 
language  to  invent  its  words  and  grammatical  forms. 
Social  suggestion  and  sympathetic  radiation  suffice  to 
impart  ready-made  the  moral  sentiments  of  the  clan  to 

1  Compare  pages  242,  243,  244. 


i88  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

its  members,  and  those  of  the  family  and  the  neighbor- 
hood to  those  who  grow  up  in  them. 

Here  an  advanced  society  is  different  from  a  primitive 
one  because  the  member  of  a  primitive  society  usually 
meets  but  one  consistent  conscience  code  in  all  his  pas- 
sage from  the  cradle  to  the  grave,  while  the  child  of 
civilization  encounters  in  servants,  parents,  neighbors, 
schoolmates  and  college  mates  numerous  minor  and 
major  variations  of  conscience  code,  by  all  of  which 
he  is  more  or  less  influenced  in  proportion  to  the  prestige 
which  at  the  time  these  various  associates  have  with  him. 
Particularly  when  the  world  is  becoming  a  "melting- 
pot,"  and  all  the  fruits  of  social  evolution  are  on  every 
hand  subjected  to  critical  test,  conscience  may  become 
almost  as  bewildered  as  language  at  Babel. 

Conscience  codes  that  are  handed  on  ready-made  pre- 
vail as  bundles  of  sentiments  in  which  feelings  of 
approval  and  disapproval  are  far  more  vivid  than  the 
rational  judgments  by  which  these  feelings  were  origin- 
ally evoked.  These  sentiments  are  transmitted  from 
generation  to  generation  by  social  radiation  which  does 
not  depend  on  explanation  of  rational  grounds  for  these 
feelings.  It  is  on  this  account  that  leaders  who  enjoy 
prestige  have  been  able  to  inculcate  some  "moral"  re- 
quirements which  were  based  on  judgments  that  regarded 
the  interests  of  the  rulers  rather  than  those  of  all  the 
members  of  the  group  and  to  perpetuate  requirements 
that  uphold  the  privileges  of  ruling  classes  after  these 
special  privileges  are  no  longer  required  in  a  more  demo- 
cratic age.  Similarly,  the  reasons  for  those  requirements 
most  essential  to  the  present  social  welfare  may  be  but 
dimly  apprehended.  That  which  the  individual  lacks  of 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     189 

recapitulating  the  evolution  of  conscience  is  mainly  the 
perception  of  the  reasons  that  underlie  the  judgments 
which  form  the  basis  of  any  conscience  code.  Children 
catch  strong  feelings  for  proprieties,  the  reasons  for 
which  they  by  no  means  understand.  And  probably 
there  are  few  persons  to  whom  a  lifetime  of  observation 
and  experience  adequately  discloses  the  reasons  that 
underlie  those  moral  judgments  which  have  been  slowly 
formed  by  the  folk  sense  under  the  hard  tutelage  of 
experience  and  the  guidance  of  the  social-minded  seers. 
Only  dimly  and  inadequately  do  the  multitude  apprehend 
the  reasons  for  such  moral  judgments  as  those  which 
lie  at  the  core  of  our  sentiment  for  truthfulness  or  for 
chastity. 

Conscience  codes  improve  in  two  ways:  First  we 
develop  a  set  of  requirements,  then  we  widen  the  circle 
within  which  they  apply.  The  first  of  these  two  processes 
is  essential,  it  is  the  rise  of  moral  law  as  such,  and  it 
consists  in  recognizing  good  and  bad  experience  and  the 
conduct  by  which  it  is  conditioned.  The  other,  the  ex- 
tension of  the  boundaries  of  ethical  group  consciousness, 
comes  relatively  late.  Moral  judgments  originally  and 
essentially  are  common  judgments  and  sentiments  of 
approval  and  condemnation  for  the  conduct  of  members 
of  the  group  toward  each  other  and  toward  the  actor's 
own  interest.  Moral  judgments  have  application  no 
farther  than  the  words  "we"  and  "our"  extend.  To  the 
persons  and  property  of  outsiders,  as  already  noted, 
early  morality  gives  no  protection.  Morality  groups  are 
at  first  small  clans.  In  time  ethics  become  ethnic.  At 
length  barbarian  as  well  as  Greek,  Gentile  as  well  as  Jew, 
Cythian,  Parthian,  bond  and  free,  Bushman  and  Boer, 


190  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

Indian  and  settler,  are  more  and  more  included  in  the 
widening  circle  of  moral  society.  Both  of  the  methods 
of  progress  in  conscience  codes  illustrate  their  social 
character.  The  former  is  original,  never  absent,  and 
discloses  the  essential  character  of  moral  law.  That 
essential  method  of  the  development  of  conscience  codes 
is  the  tutelage  of  experience,  whether  by  the  groping  of 
common  sense  or  by  the  insight  of  moral  leaders,  which 
gradually  perceives  more  and  more  clearly  the  natural 
consequences  of  conduct  in  promoting  or  destroying  the 
good  that  can  be  realized  in  human  experience,  and  so 
learns  what  to  condemn  and  what  to  approve  and  require 
in  order  that  human  conduct  may  fit  into  the  course  of 
nature  so  as  to  result  in  good  and  not  evil. 

THE  NATURE  OF  THE  MORAL  LAW 

The  question  is  now  often  asked:  If  conscience  codes 
vary  as  they  do  from  place  to  place  and  from  age  to  age, 
what  are  they  more  than  pure  conventionality?  And 
may  not  the  conscience  code  of  the  Zulu  be  better  adapted 
to  the  general  conditions  of  Zulu  life  than  the  code  of 
Socrates  or  of  Christianity?  Is  there  in  any  sense  a 
moral  absolute?  This  question  carries  us  from  the  first 
part  of  our  chapter's  theme,  "the  social  origin  of  moral 
codes,"  to  its  second  part,  "the  naturalistic  interpretation 
of  duty." 

There  have  been  three  conceptions  of  the  nature  of 
moral  law :  First,  to  the  question,  What  is  the  moral 
law?  theology  replies,  "The  moral  law  is  the  will  of 
God."  And  throughout  Christendom  it  usually  adds, 
"The  revelation  of  Scripture  imparts  to  us  a  knowledge 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     191 

of  the  requirements  of  the  moral  law/'  But  the  ques- 
tion still  remains,  Why  does  God  lay  upon  us  these  re- 
quirements and  not  other  and  different  ones?  Are 
these  actions  made  right  by  an  arbitrary  decree  of  divine 
will,  when  by  a  different  decree  God  might  have  made 
these  actions  wrong  and  others  right.  Do  our  own 
sentiments  and  the  divine  approvals  sanction  these 
actions  and  condemn  others  as  a  mere  matter  of  taste 
or  of  caprice,  or  is  there  a  difference  inherent  in  right 
conduct  that  distinguishes  it  from  wrong  so  that  no  de- 
cree could  reverse  their  designations?  Are  these  acts 
right  because  God  says  so,  or  does  God  say  so  because 
they  are  right?  If  conduct  is  right  merely  because  it 
conforms  to  a  divine  decree  which  might  have  been  made 
different  without  interference  with  anything  else  in  the 
universe,  then  the  inquiry  as  to  the  nature  of  moral  law 
can  go  no  further.  But  if  right  conduct  differs  inher- 
ently from  wrong  so  that  no  decree  could  reverse  their 
designations,  then  reference  to  a  decree  is  not  a  final 
answer  to  the  problem,  and  we  may  still  inquire  wherein 
that  inherent  difference  consists.  We  may  be  unable  to 
answer  the  inquiry,  and  if  we  know  what  God  decrees, 
our  failure  to  comprehend  the  basis  of  His  discrimina- 
tion between  good  and  evil  will  not  impair  our  obligation 
to  conform  to  His  law.  But  the  problem  will  remain, 
and  since  it  so  vitally  concerns  us,  we  have  no  right 
inertly  to  assume  that  it  is  an  inscrutable  mystery,  with- 
out having  applied  to  it  such  powers  of  comprehension 
as  we  have. 

Second,  the  metaphysical  answer  to  this  problem  is 
practically  identical  with  the  theological  answer.  To 
the  question,  What  is  the  moral  law?  it  replies  simply, 


192  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

'The  law  is  the  law."  It  stands  apart,  an  independent, 
abstract,  unrelated  entity;  its  nature  is  simply  to  demand 
that  which  it  demands.  To  the  question,  What  benefi- 
cent purpose  does  obedience  serve,  what  end  or  aim  does 
obedience  attain?  it  replies,  "The  good  of  obedience  is 
obedience;  beyond  that  we  may  not  inquire."  The  only 
difference  between  the  metaphysical  and  the  theological 
reply  to  the  query,  What  is  the  nature  of  moral  law?  is 
that  theology  adds,  "The  moral  law  is  God's  decree." 

Third  comes  science  and  asks,  What  is  the  nature  of 
the  moral  law?  and  for  its  answer  looks  at  the  facts  of 
life.  It  observes  political  law,  which  is  sometimes 
tyrannous,  cruel,  and  immoral.  And  it  observes  re- 
ligious law,  which  also  is  in  part  immoral  or  nonmoral, 
requiring  sometimes  acts  which  are  gross  or  cruel,  and 
often  acts  which  are  merely  ceremonial  or  ritual,  in- 
tended to  please  vain  and  arbitrary  deities,  and  to  secure 
selfish  rewards,  to  avoid  pains  and  penalties  in  basket 
and  store,  or  punishments  after  death.  And  both  politi- 
cal and  religious  law  it  distinguishes  from  moral  law; 
for,  though  the  three  may  tend  with  progress  to  coincide 
in  their  requirements,  they  are  seen  to  be  distinct  in 
origin  and  nature.  Moral  law  itself  is  not  always  good 
and  wise  in  its  requirements,  as  judged  by  the  standards 
of  our  own  morality.  At  times,  as  we  have  noted,  it  has 
tolerated  and  even  sanctioned  polygamy,  infanticide,  the 
murder  of  the  aged,  head-hunting,  war,  and  slavery. 
But  the  people  who  practiced  it  as  their  moral  law  be- 
lieved that  it  was  good  for  them,  and  as  soon  as  they 
ceased  to  believe  that  it  was  good  for  them  its  founda- 
tion as  a  moral  requirement  began  to  crumble.  It  is 
not  a  part  of  the  nature  of  political  law  that  it  must  seem 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     193 

to  those  who  obey  it  to  be  good  for  themselves.  It 
seems  to  them  necessary  in  order  to  secure  the  approval 
of  a  power  that  will  do  them  harm  if  they  disobey,  and 
so  indirectly  obedience  may  be  good  policy,  and  it  may 
be  dictated  by  affectionate  loyalty  to  the  sovereign.  But 
it  is  no  part  of  the  nature  and  definition  of  political  law 
that  it  prescribes  conduct  which  by  its  own  natural  con- 
sequences secures  good  to  the  subjects.  Political  law 
may  be  tyrannous.  Religious  law,  also,  has  demanded 
bitter  and  cruel  sacrifices  and  penances  as  well  as  mere 
laudation  and  ritual,  which  were  yielded  by  the  obedient 
out  of  fear  of  penalty,  hope  of  reward,  or  affectionate 
loyalty.  Like  political  law,  it  was  indirectly  good  for 
the  worshiper  to  obey  the  religious  law  because  it  secured 
favorable,  and  avoided  unfavorable,  action  by  a  ruler, 
in  this  case  a  divine  ruler;  but  it  was  not  the  essential 
character  of  religious  law  to  be  shaped  by  the  idea  that 
the  act  of  obedience  itself,  by  virtue  of  its  natural  conse- 
quences, was  good  for  the  obedient.  On  the  other  hand, 
the  moral  law,  varying  as  it  does  from  place  to  place, 
and  from  age  to  age,  has  always  this  character,  that  it 
originates  in  belief  that  it  is  good,  by  virtue  of  its  own 
nature  and  natural  consequences,  for  the  population  upon 
whom  its  obligation  rests.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  after  an 
action,  till  then  regarded  as  a  moral  requirement,  is  seen 
to  be  bad  or  unimportant  for  the  population  on  whom 
the  moral  requirement  has  been  thought  to  rest,  it  ceases 
to  be  regarded  by  them  as  a  moral  requirement.2  And  if 

'If  it  is  regarded  as  a  religious  requirement  it  may  still  borrow 
moral  quality  from  the  fact  that  irreligion  is  thought  to  be  im- 
moral. Moreover  moral  sentiment  about  an  act  may  survive  for 
a  time  after  the  moral  judgment  in  which  the  sentiment  originated 
has  been  questioned,  if  not  quite  reversed. 


194  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

the  same  population  agree  that  an  act  previously  unheard 
of,  or  regarded  as  trivial,  is  essential  to  their  welfare, 
then  they  begin  to  inculcate  that  act  as  a  moral  require- 
ment resting  upon  each  of  their  number.  This  does  not 
mean  that  moral  conduct  is  always  regarded  as  good  for 
the  individual  who  performs  it,  but  that  it  is  regarded  as 
good  for  the  group  of  which  he  is  a  member;  that  is  to 
say,  its  total  net  result  is  to  prevent  evil  or  secure  good 
to  some  member  or  members  of  the  group  that  out- 
weigh any  sacrifice  which  it  may  entail. 

Every  moral  being  belongs  to  a  group  whose  members 
think  of  themselves  as  united  and  speak  of  themselves  as 
"we."  A  permanent  "we"  group  develops  a  set  of  judg- 
ments as  to  the  conduct  which  is  good  or  bad  for  the 
group  as  a  whole  or  for  all  those  members  of  the  group 
whom  such  conduct  may  affect,  and  these  are  the  moral 
judgments  of  that  group. 

It  may  be  objected  that  in  the  contrast  just  drawn 
between  political,  religious,  and  moral  law,  we  have 
compared  lower  forms  of  government  and  religion  with 
more  highly  developed  group  morality.  There  is  justice 
in  the  objection,  as  the  statement  stands.  Law,  religion, 
and  morality  may  be  said  each  to  pass  through  three 
stages  of  development.  In  their  lowest  stages  religion, 
law,  and  morality  are  scarcely  distinguishable  from  each 
other,  and  merge  into  the  undifferentiated  requirements 
of  custom,  all  of  which  are  enforced  by  gods,  men  and 
conscience.  But  as  they  evolve  into  the  second  stage 
they  take  on  more  or  less  distinct  characters,  government 
as  might-made  law,  prescribing  the  will  and  primarily 
serving  the  interest  of  the  more  powerful,  especially  the 
will  of  conquerors;  religious  law,  as  equally  might-made, 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     195 

dictated  by  an  invisible  sovereignty,  requiring  subser- 
vience to  his  arbitrary  decrees  and  the  exaltation  of  his 
glory;  morality,  as  right-made  law,  demanding  the  con- 
duct that  by  its  natural  consequences,  independent  of 
any  external  power  or  will,  promotes  the  welfare  of  the 
group  and  of  its  members.  Even  if  this  concept  of 
moral  law  had  never  been  perfectly  disentangled  in  men's 
minds,  it  is  a  perfectly  clear  concept  when  once  formu- 
lated, and  is  here  set  forth  as  the  only  correct  concept  of 
moral  law.  When  they  reach  their  third  stage  the  three 
forms  of  law  tend  once  more  to  coalesce,  because  political 
power,  being  taken  more  and  more  into  the  hands  of  the 
group  as  a  whole,  enforces  some  portions  of  the  moral 
law  and  nothing  that  is  admittedly  against  the  moral 
law;  and  because  in  the  highest  forms  of  religion  God 
is  believed  to  have  at  heart  the  interests  of  his  creatures, 
so  that  inasmuch  as  good  is  done  to  one  of  the  least  of 
his  own  it  is  done  to  Him,  and  that  which  the  welfare  of 
the  group  demands  is  regarded  as  the  will  of  God.  In 
proportion  as  progress  takes  place  the  moral  law  brings 
religious  and  political  law  into  harmony  with  itself. 

The  individual  in  society  is,  in  fact,  subject  to  four 
forms  of  law,  religious  law,  political  law,  the  law  of 
public  opinion,  and  the  law  of  conscience,  but  the  two 
last  are  in  the  closest  relation  to  each  other.  This  is 
because  the  individual  is  a  member  of  the  public,  and 
that  which,  as  a  member  of  the  public,  he  demands  of 
others,  his  own  conscience  demands  of  himself.  Per- 
sonal interest  may  blind  him  somewhat  and  make  him 
more  lax  in  conscience  than  he  is  as  a  representative  of 
public  opinion.  But  in  so  far  as  he  has  a  conscience  its 
requirements  coincide  with  the  demands  of  public 


196  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

opinion  in  his  group.  The  demands  of  conscience  are 
simply  the  demands  of  public  opinion,  turned  inward 
upon  himself  by  each  member  of  the  group,  and  so  the 
two  are  identical,  save  in  so  far  as  the  blinding  of  self- 
judgment  by  self-interest,  or  the  fact  that  the  individual 
is  a  little  duller  or  a  little  brighter  in  insight  and  sensi- 
bility than  the  many,  may  make  his  conscience  require- 
ments vary  from  the  general  standard  of  public  opinion, 
of  which,  after  all,  his  conscience  is  in  general  a  manifes- 
tation. Barring  these  exceptions,  whether  his  conscience 
approves  infanticide,  murder  of  parents,  polygamy, 
head-hunting,  war,  and  slavery  will  depend  upon  whether 
these  forms  of  conduct  are  approved  by  the  public 
opinion  of  the  group  into  which  he  has  been  born,  and 
in  which  his  personality  has  been  formed. 

We  who  live  in  a  complex  civilization,  in  which  the 
contrasting  conscience  codes  of  many  races  and  social 
classes  are  more  or  less  represented,  differ  from  one 
another  in  the  conscience  requirements  which  we  admit, 
and  the  spirit  of  individual  liberty  once  having  asserted 
itself  in  matters  of  judgment,  the  sway  of  a  unanimous 
public  opinion  is  more  or  less  broken  up.  Yet,  it  remains 
true  that  no  rational  being  can  admit  that  he  has  two 
standards,  one  by  which  as  an  individual  he  judges  him- 
self, and  another  by  which  as  a  member  of  society  he 
judges  others  who  are  like  himself  and  under  the  same 
circumstances.  And  it  is  still  true  that  our  standards, 
such  as  they  are,  are  developed  by  social  contacts, 
whether  these  contacts  are  in  a  homogeneous  society 
having  a  uniform  conscience  code  or  in  a  heterogeneous 
society  with  more  or  less  of  mixture  and  contradiction 
in  its  standards  of  personal  judgment.  Conscience  is 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     197 

the  set  of  judgments  which  we  hold  as  a  result  of  our 
native  sensibility  and  insight  educated  by  such  partici- 
pation in  society  as  we  have  had,  the  body  of  standards 
by  which  we  judge  the  conduct  of  men — ourselves  in- 
cluded— so  long  as  we  admit  or  claim  that  both  we  and 
they  are  men. 

THE  RELATION  BETWEEN  MORAL  LAW  AND 
NATURAL  LAW 

We  now  have  before  us  the  three  views,  theological, 
metaphysical,  and  scientific,  concerning  the  nature  of 
moral  law.  Each  of  these  includes  a  characteristic  notion 
of  the  relation  between  moral  law  and  natural  law.  The 
original  theological  view  held  that  moral  law  is  superior 
to  natural  law  and  overrides  it  so  that  good  and  not 
evil  will  befall  the  righteous,  in  spite  of  natural  causes 
which  might  otherwise  have  brought  him  evil  and  not 
good.  This  is  the  view  represented  by  Job's  comforters, 
who  held  that  the  patriarch  must  have  violated  the  moral 
law  else  he  could  not  possibly  have  suffered  so.  Even 
the  voluntary  blindness  of  faith  has  not  been  able  to 
shut  out  the  fact  that  in  this  world  the  moral  law  does 
not  so  override  the  natural  law  as  to  prevent  good  men 
from  having  boils,  and  from  catching  trains  that  run  off 
the  track  or  from  going  fishing  in  boats  that  overturn. 

The  second,  or  metaphysical  view,  holds  that  the 
moral  law  and  the  natural  law  are  separate  and  dis- 
tinct. According  to  this  view,  we  must  obey  the  moral 
law  for  the  mere  sake  of  obedience  and  without  regard 
to  the  natural  consequences  that  may  follow  our  deeds; 


198  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

obedience  does  not  require  to  be  justified  by  its  conse- 
quences, and  in  fact  cannot  be  so  justified. 

The  third,  or  scientific  view,  is  that  the  moral  law  is 
the  natural  law,  the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  as  it  applies 
to  the  production  of  results  in  human  experience. 

Scientific  thinkers  often  admit  that  there  is  no  absolute 
moral  law,  but  that  all  moral  requirements,  whether 
those  of  the  Zulu  or  of  Socrates  or  of  Christ,  are  rela- 
tive. There  is,  however,  a  sense  in  which  moral  law  is 
as  absolute  as  chemical  law  or  physical  law  or  any  other 
natural  law,  for  moral  law  is  natural  law,  the  law  of 
cause  and  effect,  as  it.  applies  to  the  production  of  results 
in  human  experience.  It  is  true  that  the  accepted  require- 
ments of  conscience  vary  enormously  from  place  to  place 
and  from  age  to  age.  But  this  is  due  not  to  the  absence 
of  an  ultimate  basis  for  moral  law  but  largely  to  the 
failure  of  men  more  than  partially  to  discover  it.  The 
phrase  "moral  law"  may  be  used  in  two  distinct  senses : 
First,  to  designate  those  approvals  and  disapprovals 
actually  ingrained  in  the  sentiments  of  a  group  as  a 
result  of  practical  judgments  formed  by  the  folk  sense 
or  by  the  insight  of  leaders;  second,  to  designate  the 
requirements  which  would  have  to  be  met  in  order  to 
make  the  best  progress  toward  the  realization  of.  the 
greatest  net  total  of  good  experience.  In  other  words, 
the  phrase  moral  law  may  mean  either  what  a  group 
actually  does  approve  and  disapprove,  or  what  they 
would  approve  and  disapprove  if  they  were  thoroughly 
wise.  The  former  varies  with  human  ignorance.  The 
latter  is  determined  by  the  facts,  principally  by  the  facts 
of  human  nature.  Conventional  methods  of  agriculture 
vary  from  age  to  age  but  this  does  not  mean  that  meth- 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     199 

ods  of  successful  agriculture  are  matters  of  convention- 
ality with  no  basis  in  inflexible,  natural  law.  It  means, 
in  part,  that  an  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  laws  and 
hence  an  imperfect  obedience  to  them,  yielding  less  to  the 
acre,  are  gradually  replaced  by  more  intelligent  and  com- 
plete obedience  yielding  richer  production.  The  same  is 
true  of  man's  obedience  to  the  laws  in  accordance  with 
which  the  life  he  lives  in  society  can  bear  its  harvest  of 
satisfying  activity.  The  laws  are  as  absolute  in  one  case 
as  in  the  other,  and  in  precisely  the  same  sense.  More- 
over, discovery  of  the  laws  and  obedience  to  them  are  as 
truly  applied  science  in  the  one  case  as  in  the  other. 

THE  POSITION  OF  ETHICS  IN  SCIENCE 

We  are  often  told  that  the  formulation  of  an  ideal  and 
of  moral  rules  is  not  a  scientific  procedure.  But  the 
ethical  task  when  truly  conceived  is  seen  to  be  not  a 
matter  of  subjective  speculation  but  rather  to  be  first, 
the  discovery  of  an  ideal  which  is  objectively  defined  by 
the  nature  of  man  and  his  position  in  the  larger  whole 
of  nature;  and  second,  the  formulation  of  moral  rules, 
rules  for  the  realization  of  that  ideal,  which  are  not 
matters  of  speculative  conceptualism,  personal  prefer- 
ence, or  arbitrary  caprice,  but  simply  are  the  require- 
ments of  natural  law  for  the  causation  of  that  which  to 
human  consciousness  is  the  best  attainable  within  the 
limits  set  by  reality.  The  ethical  problems  could  be 
answered  by  an  investigator  who  had  no  ethical  interests 
but  only  scientific  interest,  and  who  never  asked  what 
ought  to  be  but  only  what  is — provided  he  were  able  to 
take  and  understand  the  testimony  of  normal  men.  The 


200  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

various  forms  of  good  human  experience  actually  exist, 
their  values  to  consciousness  are  realities,  the  methods 
of  their  conditioning  are  realities,  and  these  methods  fall 
within  the  scope  of  natural  law. 

The  highest  function  of  sociology  is  to  discover  the 
conditioning  of  the  varieties  of  experience-activity  which 
prevail  in  society.  Just  in  proportion  as  that  task  is 
advanced  we  secure  well-grounded  judgments  of  the 
goodness  and  badness  of  conduct  as  conditioning  human 
weal  and  woe.  To  discover  this  conditioning  is  the 
problem  of  right  and  wrong.  Sociology  is  committed 
to  the  attempt  to  discover  whether  in  this  quest  science 
can  go  further  than  common  sense  has  carried  us. 
Sociology  seeks  to  give  to  conduct  the  guidance  and  mo- 
tives of  enlightenment. 

That  conduct  is  right  which  is  the  condition  of  expe- 
rience that  is  valuable.  And  what  conduct  it  is  that 
leads  to  experience  that  is  valuable  is  a  question  that 
can  be  answered  only  by  experience  and  observation,  and 
by  inference  based  upon  past  experience  and  observation, 
and  to  be  tested  by  further  experience  and  observation. 
That  conduct  is  right  which,  "on  the  whole,"  and  "in 
the  long  run/'  and  "taking  into  account  all  the  interests 
affected,"  most  augments  the  value  of  experience;  and 
that  conduct  is  wrong  which,  thus  broadly  considered, 
appears  to  make  the  value  of  experience  less  than  it 
would  be  made  by  other  conduct. 

It  may  be  that  not  many  are  able  to  form  judgments 
of  such  broad  and  far-sighted  expediency,  judgments 
which  neither  unreasonably  discount  the  future  and  the 
unintended  result,  nor  excessively  regard  the  clamorous 
interest  of  the  immediate  actors,  and  which  are  so  gen- 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     201 

eral  in  their  application  as  to  forearm  man  to  meet  the 
vicissitudes  in  which  he  must  play  his  part.  It  may  be 
that  only  the  few  are  able  to  make  any  valuable  contri- 
bution toward  the  equipment  of  duty- judgments  prev- 
alent in  the  society  of  which  they  are  members.  But 
after  these  judgments  of  the  wisest,  most  far-sighted  and 
constructive  minds  have  become  traditionally  accepted 
rules  of  duty,  they  are  enforced  by  priests,  potentates, 
and  teachers  of  a  lesser  caliber.  These  enforce  the  tra- 
ditionally accepted  duty  code  of  their  society  by  appeal 
to  every  conceivable  sanction  natural  and  supernatural, 
enforce  them  by  smiles  and  frowns  that  greet  the  earliest 
choices  and  impulsive  acts  of  childhood,  enforce  them 
by  the  continuous  pressure  of  the  social  approvals  and 
disapprovals  in  which  we  are  immersed  as  in  an  atmos- 
phere, enforce  them  by  the  self-approval  and  remorse 
that  turn  in  upon  ourselves  the  judgments  which  they 
have  taught  us  to  pass  upon  others,  and  enforce  them, 
and  at  the  same  time  explain  them  after  the  manner  of 
the  prescientific  theological  and  metaphysical  stages  of 
thought,  by  calling  them  the  fingermarks  of  God  upon 
the  soul  of  man,  intuitions  of  our  nature,  corollaries 
deduced  from  the  nature  of  the  absolute.  Every  broad 
and  far-sighted  judgment  of  expediency  is  a  corollary 
of  the  nature  of  things,  but  man  has  derived  his  knowl- 
edge of  such  laws  of  conduct  experimentally  from  his 
own  failures  and  successes  and  not  from  antecedent 
knowledge  of  the  absolute  nor  from  implanted  intuitions. 

If  the  foregoing  argument  has  received  assent  it  is 
now  clear  that  the  varying  moral  codes  of  different  soci- 
eties are  typical  social  phenomena  of  the  kind  which 


202  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

sociology  aims  to  explain.  Their  natural  history  is  a 
history  of  social  evolution.  Progress  in  the  formation 
of  such  codes  is  progress  on  the  part  of  moral  leaders, 
or  of  the  folk  sense,  or  of  both,  in  acquaintance  with 
valuable  varieties  of  experience  and  in  understanding  the 
effects  of  conduct  in  promoting  or  preventing  these 
values.  These  judgments  concerning  what  is  good  and 
what  is  right  are  spread  by  social  suggestion  and  they 
give  rise  to  sentiments  of  approval  and  abhorrence  which 
also  are  socially  radiated.  And  such  moral  judgments 
and  moral  sentiments  as  are  thus  evolved  and  socially 
radiated  within  a  given  society  become  the  conscience 
code  of  those  who  are  born  and  reared  in  that  society. 
It  is,  therefore,  a  part  of  the  business  of  sociology,  to 
apply  the  methods  of  science  to  answering  the  questions : 
Whence  comes  this  and  that  traditionally  accepted  and 
socially  enforced  moral  judgment  and  sentiment ;  why  do 
these  judgments  and  sentiments  differ  so  astonishingly 
in  different  eras  and  in  different  societies ;  and  how,  from 
having  first  prescribed  duties  only  towards  the  members 
of  the  group  within  which  they  arose,  leaving  liberty  to 
steal  with  a  clear  conscience,  or  even  with  a  sense  of 
merit,  the  property,  or  the  wife,  or  the  head,  of  any 
member  of  another  group,  do  they  tend  to  widen  their 
scope  till  they  inculcate  the  universal  brotherhood  of 
man?  And  sociology  must  approach  in  the  scientific 
spirit  not  only  the  question  of  tracing  the  natural  history 
of  existing  moral  codes,  but  also  the  further  question: 
Do  these  existing  moral  requirements  actually  prescribe 
the  wisest  judgments  of  expediency;  and  if  not,  can 
they  be  further  amended  so  as  better  to  prescribe  the 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     203 

method  of  promoting  complete  and  harmonious  expe- 
rience within  the  conditions  of  actual  society? 

Thus,  in  addition  to  the  two  problems  "what  is  good" 
and  "what  is  right,"  a  scientific  ethics  includes  a  third, 
namely,  the  problem  of  tracing  the  natural  history  of 
existing  conscience  codes ;  and  also  a  fourth,  namely,  that 
of  constructive  criticism  of  our  own  code.  This  third 
and  this  fourth  task  theology  and  metaphysics  do  not 
attempt.  Each  has  an  easy  answer  to  the  question, 
Whence  come  our  ideas  of  right  and  wrong — the  one 
answering,  "From  divine  revelation/'  the  other  usually 
answering,  "From  intuition."  And  as  to  the  fourth 
question,  How  can  our  own  conscience  code  be  bettered? 
to  ask  it  is  an  affront  to  unscientific  traditionalism. 

But  it  is  in  the  solution  of  the  third  problem,  the 
problem  of  the  social  evolution  of  conscience  codes,  that 
science  made  its  first  important  contributions  to  ethics. 
First  it  pointed  out  the  fact  that  there  are  many  and 
various  conscience  codes,  that  codes  which  are  abhorrent 
to  each  other  are  equally  satisfying  to  those  who  have 
grown  up  under  them,  and  that  the  group  sense  "can 
make  anything  seem  right"  to  those  bred  and  born  within 
the  group.  It  showed  also  that  the  various  and  irrecon- 
cilable conscience  codes  of  different  peoples  are  products 
of  their  respective  group  life.  It  has  been  able,  more- 
over, to  obtain  a  considerably  detailed  knowledge  of  the 
methods  by  which  these  codes  develop  and  acquire  their 
character  and  their  power. 

As  a  result  of  these  studies  it  seems  clear  that  all  the 
existing  conscience  codes  have  been  derived  by  the 
process  of  observation,  inference,  and  experience.  And 
this  sufficiently  indicates  that  the  fourth  task  of  ethics, 


204  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

namely,  our  further  progress  toward  a  more  perfect 
knowledge  of  moral  requirements,  must  be  accomplished 
by  the  same  method,  the  method  of  induction  from  expe- 
rience and  investigation  and  not  the  method  of  deduction 
from  speculatively  formulated  premises.  And  the  fact 
that  past  progress  in  morality  has  been  progress  toward 
recognition  of  the  conduct  that  is  causally  effective  m 
promoting  social  welfare,  is  good  evidence  for  the  prop- 
osition that  the  ultimate  moral  law  is  nothing  other  than 
the  law  of  cause  and  effect,  and  that  the  ethical  aim  and 
standard  is  that  social  welfare,  which  in  its  fullness  and 
harmony  is  more  and  more  perfectly  conceived  with  the 
advance  of  human  knowledge  derived  from  broadening 
experience. 

ARE  MORAL  REQUIREMENTS  "CATEGORICAL"  OR 
"HYPOTHETICAL"  ? 

There  are  no  requirements  that  are  not  "hypothetical." 
That  is  to  say,  it  is  the  nature  of  duty  to  serve  an  end. 
The  classical  distinction  between  the  "categorical"  and 
the  "hypothetical"  imperative  is  the  supreme  example  of 
the  hypostasis  of  the  instrument.3  Right  is  the  instru- 
ment of  good,  and  good  is  good  human  experience.  This 
is  true  or  human  life  is  either  a  sacrifice  to  a  world-end 

'"Hypostasis  of  the  instrument"  is  the  philosopher's  name  for 
the  absurdity  of  treating  the  means  as  more  important  than  the  end, 
or  as  having  importance  for  its  own  sake  when  its  real  importance 
is  derived  from  the  fact  that  it  serves  the  end.  This  is  what  is  done 
by  those  who  teach  that  moral  law  is  "categorical,"  that  is,  that  it 
must  be  obeyed  for  the  mere  sake  of  obedience,  not  because  any 
good  is  accomplished  by  obedience  beyond  the  mere  obedience 
itself.  An  hypothetical  imperative  prescribes  the  condition  which 
must  be  fulfilled  if  a  good  result  is  to  be  attained. 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     205 

outside  of  man,  or  else  it  has  no  rational  end,  and  life 
is  a  nightmare,  and  the  search  for  a  reasoned  law  of 
conduct  is  vain.  No  one  is  justified  in  adopting  the 
pessimistic  conclusion  that  the  conscious  life  of  man  has 
no  rational  end,  nor  the  semipessimistic  conclusion  that 
man's  earthly  experience  has  no  end  save  one  that  is 
beyond  the  scope  of  human  observation,  until  the  at- 
tempt to  discover  the  end  in  human  experience  has  been 
exhausted  and  has  failed.  No  one  shall  warn  us  off 
from  that  attempt. 

Moreover,  even  though  there  be  also  an  end  attained 
by  human  life  which  is  not  in  human  life  or  discoverable 
by  human  intelligence,  certain  it  is  that  there  are  values 
in  human  experience.  If  they  do  not  constitute  the 
whole  end  of  human  action,  they  are  at  least  a  definite 
and  highly  important  class  of  phenomena,  the  complex 
and  peculiar  conditioning  of  which  can  be  investigated. 
This  justifies  the  existence  of  a  scientific  study  of  human 
values,  to  compare  them  with  each  other,  to  formulate 
out  of  the  elements  furnished  by  experience  a  more  and 
more  adequate  concept  of  them  in  their  harmony  and 
completeness,  and  in  the  light  of  experience  to  distin- 
guish those  forms  of  conduct  which  are  promotive  of 
human  values  from  those  that  destroy,  disorganize,  and 
degrade  life  by  preventing  the  realization  of  such  value- 
phenomena. 

If  the  laws  of  conduct  thus  derived  were  subject  to 
higher  laws  involved  in  a  nature-of -things  not  revealed 
in  human  experience,  then,  if  anybody  could  by  any  pos- 
sibility get  at  the  content  of  such  absolute  laws,  they 
would  be  superior  to  the  laws  prescribing  the  conduct 
conducive  to  human-experience-values.  The  latter  would 


206  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

be  only  laws  for  the  attainment  of  a  part  which 
is  subject  to  the  greater  whole,  and  the  science  of  human- 
experience-values  would  then  be  a  science  of  a  part,  yet 
a  true  science,  since  human-experience-values  are  a  dis- 
tinct kind  of  phenomena  rising  from  a  special  complexus 
of  conditioning.  And  no  other  values  of  which  they 
can  be  a  part  are  discoverable  by  the  human  mind.  The 
whole  harmony  of  values  realizable  in  human  experience 
is  the  highest  and  largest  end  that  can  be  formulated  by 
human  intelligence  for  the  guidance  of  human  action; 
and  ethics,  if  it  is  anything  intelligible,  is  the  formula- 
tion of  that  concept  and  discovery  of  the  method  by 
which  those  values  are  conditioned.  Any  trustworthy 
concept  of  these  values  must  be  an  induction  from  knowl- 
edge of  that  which  already  has  been,  though  the  induc- 
tion may  outrun  all  that  ever  was  in  any  single  instance, 
gathering1  elements  from  the  widest  observation,  and 
inferring  the  possibility  of  new  combinations  from 
knowledge  of  fragmentary  realizations.  And  any  trust- 
worthy knowledge  of  the  conditions  under  which  those 
values  can  be  realized  must  result  from  experience  and 
objective  research.  Furthermore,  such  values,  though 
grounded  in  man's  inborn  nature,  are  now  found  in 
socially  evolved  activity;  they  are  conditioned  by  social 
cooperation;  knowledge  of  the  methods  of  their  con- 
ditioning is  mainly  knowledge  of  social  interaction;  and 
the  development  of  such  knowledge  into  prevalent  and 
dominant  sentiments  is  a  process  of  social  evolution. 
The  science  which  deals  with  the  four  ethical  problems, 
whatever  it  is  called,  is  a  science  of  social  life. 

In  so  far  as  such  knowledge  is  attained  we  have  no 
need  for  speculations  as  to  the  "ground  of  moral  obli- 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     207 

gation,"  but  clearly  see  moral  obligation  in  the  condi- 
tions of  human  good,  and  see  the  basis  of  the  moral  law 
to  be  as  absolute  as  the  law  of  cause  and  effect  is  absolute 
in  any  other  realm.  Reason  and  courage  forbid  us  to  be 
blinded  by  a  dolorous  present  and  insist  that  we  have 
faith  that  better  knowledge  of  life's  practical  require- 
ments will  be  the  source  of  motives  to  nerve  coming 
generations  to  achieve  a  nobler  civilization, — motives 
that  will  replace  the  more  or  less  artificial  ones  offered  by 
ancient  poets  and  philosophers  and  the  more  or  less 
waning  incentives  of  supernaturalism.  It  is  the  pitiful 
"illusion  of  the  near"  to  think  that  in  the  millions  of 
years  that  our  sun  will  continue  to  shine  there  is  to  be 
no  progress.  The  lesson  of  the  past  is  that  progress  is 
cumulative.  And  the  greatest  opportunity  for  progress 
is  not  in  bettering  machines  but  in  improving  ideals  of 
general  welfare,  knowledge  of  the  methods  by  which 
such  welfare  can  be  attained,  standards  of  individual  and 
social  success,  and  motives  to  conduct.  It  would  be 
irrational  and  craven  not  to  hope  that  the  new  common 
sense  4  born  of  advancing  science  will  include  more  ade- 
quate knowledge  of  the  ways  in  which  all  sorts  of  good 
and  evil  are  to  be  sought  and  shunned  as  fruits  of  our 
social  interdependence,  of  what  values  are  at  stake  in  life 
and  how  our  actions  forfeit  and  violate  the  good,  or 
secure  it.  Upon  such  science  there  may  be  based  an  art 
of  life  that  will  tend  to  release  men  from  fruitless  striv- 
ing after  mistaken  ends;  and  spread  abroad  standards 
of  approval  and  condemnation  that  will  give  a  new  and 

4  It  is  elsewhere  noted  (p.  313)  that  the  phrase  "common  sense" 
has  two  meanings.  Here  it  has  its  social,  not  its  psychological, 
signification. 


208  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

nobler  definition  to  the  word  success,  a  worthier  bent  to 
ambition;  turn  the  stimulations  of  applause,  the  urgency 
of  duty,  and  the  zest  of  self-expression  into  wiser  ways; 
and  thus  discover  new  levels  of  human  possibility  and 
satisfaction,  impossible  to  the  isolated  individual  human 
will,  made  possible  only  by  a  social  situation  created  by 
the  presence  of  a  social  mass  enlightened  as  to  the  ends 
and  means  of  life,  as  no  great  population  as  yet  has 
ever  been.  The  standards  of  conduct  thus  disclosed  we 
shall  enforce  upon  others  with  a  determination  propor- 
tioned to  our  recognition  of  their  necessity.  And  because 
we  thus  enforce  them  upon  others  they  will  bind  them- 
selves upon  our  own  consciences  with  the  logic  of  con- 
sistency. Open-eyed  conviction  and  sane  vision  of  the 
forms  of  human  peril,  possibility,  and  worth,  might  then 
inspire  more  stirring  poetry  and  nobler  art  than  ever 
sprung  from  the  cathedral-building  mysticism  of  the 
medievals,  and  sustain  a  steadier  devotion  and  fidelity 
adequate  to  the  strains  of  a  complex  and  towering  civil- 
ization. Give  us  a  few  generations  in  which  the  new 
food  for  heroism  and  joy  in  life  has  not  only  been  dis- 
covered and  adequately  set  forth,  but  backed  by  author- 
ity, glorified  by  art,  and  established  in  common  consent, 
and  then  let  us  see  to  what  society  can  rise.  Our  sym- 
bols of  art  and  ritual  will  then  stand  not  for  a  merely 
metaphysical  absolute,  nor  for  an  arbitrary  divine  decree, 
but  for  all  the  weal  and  woe,  the  blight  and  fulfillment, 
the  waste  and  worth,  the  good  aiid  evil  of  which 
human  life  and  possibility  are  compacted,  and  they  will 
stir  the  heart  and  command  the  conscience  with  devotion 
to  the  very  ends  that  stir  the  soul  of  God,  if  there  be  a 
God  whose  name  is  Love. 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     209 

Why  should  the  sociologist  be  afraid  of  losing  caste 
with  scientists  by  acknowledging  the  hope  that  the  knowl- 
edge which  he  seeks  will  be  of  use  to  men?  It  may  be 
easy  to  lose  sight  of  that  hope  when  studying  mathe- 
matics or  material  things,  but  the  sociologist,  if  he  be 
a  real  man,  is  daily  reminded  of  it,  because  his  object 
matter  is  human  experience  itself.  And  if  he  be  a  real 
scientist,  that  very  hope  will  make  him  the  more  on 
guard  to  see  the  objects  of  his  study  in  a  dry  light, 
knowing  that  the  application  of  truth  must  often  be  long 
deferred,  that  no  uses  can  be  truly  served  by  him  or  his 
science,  nor  true  progress  made  in  it  save  by  the  dis- 
interested search  for  objective  reality,  even  when  reality 
seems  to  shatter  faiths  and  baffle  hopes;  and  that  to 
vitiate  his  process  by  haste  for  application  would  be  the 
more  deplorable  in  proportion  as  the  practical  good  to 
be  anticipated  from  genuine  objective  comprehension  is 
the  greater. 

Much  more  might  be  said  concerning  the  practical  ad- 
vantages of  the  scientific  conception  of  the  nature  of 
moral  law.  Is  it  not  possible  that  one  of  the  most  mis- 
chievous delusions  that  has  ever  entered  the  mind  of  man 
to  paralyze  justice  and  drug  conscience  is  the  belief  that 
sometime,  somewhere,  a  law  other  than  that  of  cause  and 
effect  will  intervene  to  right  wrongs,  to  reward  innocent 
victims  for  their  sufferings  and  repair  the  ruin  wrought 
by  malice,  selfishness,  ignorance,  and  the  negligence  that 
"meant  no  harm."  When  we  look  upon  the  millions  who- 
miss  life's  values,  if  we  are  aware  that  the  differences  in 
human  experience  are  results  of  causation,  we  shall  be 
inspired,  as  students,  to  investigate  that  causation.  With 
adequate  realization  of  that  fact,  even  cruelty  would 


210  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

pause  to  sow  broadcast  the  seeds  of  woe,  and  generous 
humanity  would  waken  to  its  task,  and  would  discover  a 
new  enthusiasm  and  a  new  motive  to  devotion,  in  the  fact 
that  whatever  a  man  soweth  that  shall  many  reap.  We 
are  cast  upon  an  age  in  which  the  mystical  motives  have 
declined,  and  we  must  discover  new  motives  or  life  will 
become  sordid  and  desolate,  and  society  a  trough,  a  sty, 
and  a  slaughter  pen.  A  little  knowledge  has  proved  a 
dangerous  thing.  We  miss  the  stars  that  once  we  sailed 
by  and  must  look  for  the  sun.  All  that  ever  made  right 
right,  and  all  that  ever  made  wrong  wrong,  is  eternal. 
Men  know  but  dimly  why  right  and  wrong  are  right  and 
wrong  and  so  appeal  to  conscience  with  every  fanciful 
sanction  that  their  ingenuity  can  devise,  not  only  to  im- 
pose motives  upon  the  consciences  of  others  who  required 
control,  but  also  to  satisfy  their  own  souls  with  tonic,  for 
there  is  no  tonic  like  a  lofty  motive,  and  without  it  life 
is  flat  and  stale.  We  shall  discover  new  inspiration  not 
by  shutting  our  eyes  in  meditation,  but  by  opening  wide 
our  eyes  and  raising  them  to  look  abroad,  straight  into 
the  facts  of  life,  fearless  of  the  light.  And  if  subjective 
fellowship  with  anthropomorphic  idola  grows  less  inspir- 
ing and  is  not  easily  replaced  by  truer  notions  of  the  im- 
manent unseen,  then  from  the  seen,  when  seen  more 
fully,  will  come  our  inspiration.  And  if  at  first,  missing 
the  more  familiar  light,  some  men  feel  that  nothing  mat- 
ters now,  and  the  unlighted  world  looks  one  monotonous 
gray,  then  let  us  remember  that  in  that  gray  is  all  the 
white  and  all  the  black.  And  from  that  whiteness  of 
human  purity  and  love  and  constancy  and  worth  was 
taken  all  the  white  glory  of  our  thought  of  the  God  of 
love  and  righteousness,  and  from  that  blackness  was 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     211 

borrowed  all  the  blackness  of  the  devil  and  of  hell.  The 
whiteness  and  the  blackness  are  still  here — the  glory  and 
the  blight.  The  strife  of  Ahura-Mazda  and  Ahriman 
does  not  cease  because  men  loose  their  superstitious  faith 
in  those  personifications.  Let  "God"  and  "The  Devil" 
become  names  for  the  sum  of  all  that  is  good  and  that 
makes  for  goodness,  and  all  that  is  evil  and  that  makes 
for  evil.  Thus  the  acts  of  man  will  be  more  clearly  seen 
as  of  God  or  of  the  Devil. 

THE  INTELLIGIBLE  IMPERATIVE 

In  many  minds  the  old  foundation  for  a  life  of  worth 
and  dignity  has  crumbled,  the  old  fountain  of  earnestness 
and  noble  zeal  has  dried  up,  for  the  typical  son  of  the 
twentieth  century  the  categorical  imperative  is  no  more. 
If  that  foundation  was  sand  where  is  the  rock?  The 
only  unassailable  basis  for  an  intelligently  conducted  life 
is  sane  general  apprehension  of  life's  values  and  the 
relation  of  our  conduct  to  their  realization. 

As  the  thought  of  a  single  anticipated  experience  may 
move  us  to  a  single  act,  so  the  most  general  survey  of 
human  weal  and  woe  which  our  experience  and  imag- 
ination enable  us  to  make  may  stir  us  more  effectually. 
It  is  true,  the  small  concrete  instances  completely  pre- 
sented to  the  mind  may  stir  us  more  directly  and  emo- 
tionally than  any  general  survey  of  life's  values.  Yet 
the  comparatively  unemotional  admission  that  the  whole 
is  greater  than  that  part  which  moves  us  so  will  incite 
the  well-trained  man  to  fulfill  the  requirements  of  the 
larger  vision.  If  the  emotion  that  we  feel  at  a  single 
instance  were  multiplied  by  the  whole  number  of  in- 


212  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

stances  of  weal  and  woe,  we  should  be  overwhelmed  and 
driven  mad.  The  emotion  that  is  aroused  in  us  by  a 
single  instance  serves  to  propel  us  in  activities  calcu- 
lated to  ward  off  similar  instances  of  evil  or  to  secure 
similar  instances  of  good  in  a  thousand  repetitions. 
Moreover,  the  realization  that  the  world  can  be  delivered 
from  chaos  and  its  rich  possibilities  fulfilled  only  as  men 
act  upon  these  general  perceptions  of  reason,  produces 
in  the  well-trained  man  the  support  of  feeling  for  these 
reasonable  demands,  and  a  revulsion  of  feeling  against 
disobedience  to  them.  Further,  our  own  self -sense  ree'n- 
forces  this  prompting,  and  one  rebels  at  the  thought  that 
he  should  fail  to  be  one  of  those  who  play  the  reasonable 
part.  The  motive  of  moral  consistency  adds  its  propul- 
sion to  any  recognized  requirement,  but  the  generalized 
social  imperative  is  peculiarly  adapted  to  be  reen  forced 
by  the  whole  power  of  that  motive.  Such  causes  may 
arouse  in  us  the  prompting  not  merely  to  a  single  act, 
but  to  a  life  of  reasonable  purpose. 

The  motive  thus  inspired  is  the  prompting  of  the 
general  conclusion  of  practical  reason.  Every  practical 
judgment  is  hypothetical:  If  I  put  my  hand  in  the  fire 
I  shall  be  burned;  I  shrink  from  burning,  therefore  I 
shrink  from  the  act  which  would  involve  such  conse- 
quences. If  I  follow  one  course  I  shall  add  to  the  sum 
of  evil;  if  I  follow  the  other  I  shall  add  to  the  sum  of 
good  and  be  a  part  of  the  force  that  makes  for  the  ful- 
fillment of  the  good  possibilities  of  man.  We  all  want 
the  general  good  to  be  secured,  but  if  the  boat  laden  with 
the  hopes  of  us  all  comes  duly  to  harbor  it  will  be 
because  each  one  pulls  an  oar.  Can  I  be  boring  holes 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     213 

in  the  bottom  of  the  boat  while  others  row?  No  force 
is  adequate  to  hold  each  man  in  his  place  save  each 
man's  perception  of  his  own  duty.  No  law  will  suffice 
but  the  law  of  freedom  by  which  each  one  is  a  law  unto 
himself.  The  lawlessness  of  one  undermines  the  fidelity 
of  others  while  each  faithful  soul  is  a  center  of  sound- 
ness— this  is  the  salt  which  saves  the  world.  It  is  the 
sight  of  the  self-imposed  fidelity  of  the  faithful  that 
keeps  alive  man's  faith  in  man  wherever  that  faith  does 
not  die.  The  more  others  do  not  see,  or  seeing  do  not 
obey,  the  law  of  our  common  life  the  more  cause  for  the 
fidelity  of  the  one.  Where  others  prove  unfaithful  he 
alone  cannot  achieve  the  ends  which  by  their  cooperation 
he  might  have  reached,  but  failing  so,  though  at  the 
stake  or  on  the  cross,  he  will  be  a  savior.  Let  each  so 
play  his  part  that  if  all  should  play  their  parts  likewise, 
the  good  possibilities  of  the  group  in  which  he  moves, 
and  of  humanity,  would  be  fulfilled.  There  is  no  other 
way  to  save  the  world.  The  generalized  rational,  or 
hypothetical,  imperative  has  all  the  majesty  without  the 
incomprehensibility  of  the  categorical  imperative. 

No  follower  of  the  rational  social  imperative  can  ever 
think  that  it  imposes  a  merely  negative  responsibility 
requiring  him  to  do  no  harm.  The  source  of  life's 
reasonable  motives  is  not  merely  that  there  is  harm  to  be 
prevented  but  also  in  the  fact  that  there  is  always  poten- 
tial good  to  be  achieved,  and  that  this  potential  good 
must  largely  be  a  cooperative  social  achievement,  in 
which  each  man's  work  and  the  suggestions  emanating 
from  his  personality  play  a  part.  The  logic  of  the  gen- 
eralized hypothetical  imperative  requires  him  so  to  act 


214  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

as  to  fit  into  the  general  method  of  the  social  realization 
of  good.  In  entering  upon  any  situation  in  life,  in 
joining  a  moonlight  stroll  or  a  parlor  festival,  in  accept- 
ing a  place  on  an  athletic  team,  or  membership  in  a  home, 
in  taking  employment  with  a  firm,  or  engaging  a  work- 
man, or  opening  an  office  in  a  city,  it  is  reasonable  to  ask 
both  what  can  I  get  out  of  this  situation  and  what  can 
I  put  into  it.  Not  to  ask  the  latter  as  well  as  the  former 
question  is  to  be  base  and  parasitic.  Every  social  situa- 
tion is  a  cooperative  undertaking  in  which  each  one  de- 
pends upon  the  rest  and  must  be  depended  on,  which  each 
one  can  and  must  make  either  worse  or  better.  This 
realization  makes  men  real.  Moved  by  it  one  cannot 
make  goods  "just  to  sell,"  one  will  not  speak  or  write 
moved  only  by  the  thought  of  the  reaction  of  the  public 
upon  himself  with  praise  or  blame,  reward  or  penalty, 
but  he  will  speak  and  write  and  work  for  truth  and 
righteousness. 

Whatever  may  be  true  of  women,  with  men  it  is  the 
generalized  social  imperative  rather  than  particular  sym- 
pathy that  evokes  the  highest  devotion  and  lives  of  con- 
sistent and  dependable  usefulness.  Saints,  missionaries, 
and  reformers  are  not  likely  to  be  persons  whose  benevo- 
lent life-purpose  depends  wholly  upon  sympathy  with 
particular  instances  that  chance  to  come  within  their 
observation,  but  they  are  likely  rather  to  be  persons  who 
can  feel  enthusiasm  for  a  general  social  campaign.  So 
also  is  the  ordinary  good  and  fit  citizen  of  an  advanced 
and  advancing  society.  Personal,  as  distinguished  from 
social,  sympathy  will  not  do.  It  is  too  short-sighted,  it 
can  feel  a  social  pin  prick,  but  it  cannot  see  a  thirteen- 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     215 

inch  gun  aimed  across  the  social  battlefield.  Milkmen 
who  would  die  rather  than  strangle  one  baby  have 
murdered  innocents  like  Herod.  Corporators  who  would 
passionately  defend  the  property  rights  of  an  acquaint- 
ance have  appropriated  millions  for  which  they  have 
made  no  return.  In  the  mind  of  the  good  man  the  gen- 
eralization of  the  requirements  of  humanity  must  go 
beyond  the  particular  instance.  Suppose  certain  corpo- 
rations are  bound  to  use  money  enough  to  kill  a  bill 
which  is  pending  before  a  legislature,  and  that  the  bill 
ought  to  be  killed.  Shall  the  legislator  say :  "I  will  take 
the  thousand  dollars  offered  for  my  negative  vote;  it 
will  make  no  difference  except  that  the  money  will  be  in 
my  pocket  instead  of  some  other"?  Or  shall  he  say: 
"Bribery  and  the  perversion  of  representative  govern- 
ment can  be  stopped  only  when  legislators  refuse  bribes. 
There  is  vastly  more  at  stake  than  this  strike  bill.  All 
strike  bills,  fit  city  charters,  administration  of  health 
laws  that  could  save  thousands  of  lives  annually;  all 
laws,  the  general  promotion  of  welfare  realizable  by  pure 
legislation  and  administration,  all  are  at  stake — more 
than  men  have  died  for  on  many  a  battlefield  is  at  stake. 
Progress  waits  for  soundness.  It  is  for  me  to  help  per- 
petuate the  existing  rottenness  by  being  a  part  of  it  or 
to  be  one  center  of  soundness  and  give  back  to  the  man 
who  offers  me  the  bribe  his  faith  in  men.  It  may  do  no 
good  in  the  present  legislation,  but  my  sacrifice  will  be 
part  of  the  cost  of  the  coming  better  day."  This  is  the 
meaning  of  the  saying  of  Christ,  "If  any  man  will  come 
after  me  let  him  take  up  his  cross  and  follow  me" — let 
him  pay  his  part  of  the  cost  as  I  pay  mine  on  my  cross. 


216  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

SOCIAL  SCIENCE  AND  SOCIAL  PHILOSOPHY 

This,  then,  is  our  conclusion:  It  makes  a  difference 
what  men  believe.  With  truer  ideas  we  shall  have  a 
better  world.  The  fond  imaginings  of  the  past,  though 
necessary  in  their  day,  have  become  obstacles  to  progress. 
If  the  officially  advocated  creed  of  the  good  loses  hold 
upon  earnest  and  intelligent  youth  and  leaves  them  to 
blackness  and  wandering  when  a  newer,  better  creed 
would  recruit  them  to  righteousness,  then  fidelity  to  that 
old  creed  and  opposition  to  the  creed  of  reality  becomes 
a  work  of  the  devil.  While  we  are  interested  in  past 
speculation  concerning  ethics,  as  a  portion  of  the  history 
of  human  thought,  yet  from  this  time  on  the  study  of 
ethics  should  be  definitely  taken  over  from  the  realm  of 
speculative  philosophy  to  the  realm  of  objective  science. 
And  while  some  of  the  men  who  pursue  that  study  may 
be  called  philosophers  and  some  may  be  called  sociol- 
ogists, they  all  will  be  engaged  in  building  up  that  which 
we  call  sociology,  though  some  of  them  may  give  their 
work  another  name. 

Whatever  may  be  thought  of  Comte's  famous  doctrine 
of  "the  three  stages  of  progress"  in  other  connections, 
it  applies  neatly  to  the  development  of  ethical  theory. 
Ethical  'theory  had  its  "theological"  stage,  in  which  the 
moral  law  was  regarded  as  the  voice  of  God  in  the  soul 
of  man.  It  then  had  its  "metaphysical"  period  in  which 
moral  law  was  conceived  of  as  a  sublime  abstraction 
emanating  from  the  "Ding  an  sick"  which  lies  beyond 
the  range  of  human  observation.  And  now  it  is  entering 
upon  the  "positive,"  or  "scientific,  stage,  with  the  recog- 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     217 

nition  that  the  rise  of  the  various  and  conflicting  con- 
science codes  of  different  peoples  is  no  more  mysterious 
than  the  rise  of  different  languages  or  different  political 
systems;  that  conscience  codes  are  the  products  of  human 
instinct  and  reason  trying  to  find  the  essential  require- 
ments of  successful  life,  the  avoidance  of  death,  pain, 
and  sorrow,  and  the  attainment  of  happiness  in  the 
organized  struggle  for  social  existence.  Conscience  codes 
are  typical  products  of  that  complex  but  methodical 
reaction  between  human  nature  and  its  natural  and  social 
environment  which  constitute  social  evolution.  They 
evolve  and  progress  from  crude  and  rudimentary  forms 
toward  loftier  and  more  rational  types,  as  other  institu- 
tions have  done  and  will  continue  to  do.  And  if 
after  scientific  study  they  no  longer  seem  to  derive 
authority  from  "supernatural"  or  "ultrarational" 
sources,  they  will  be  seen  instead  to  have  such  authority 
as  they  do  intrinsically  possess  and  will  even  appear 
with  a  certain  sublimity  as  the  supreme  expression  of 
human  powers  of  thought  and  feeling  and  of  the  im- 
mutable laws  of  nature  as  they  apply  to  the  life  of  man. 
"Modern  science  does  much  more  than  demand  that  it 
shall  be  left  in  undisturbed  possession  of  what  the  theo- 
logian and  metaphysician  please  to  term  its  'legitimate 
field/  It  claims  that  the  whole  range  of  phenomena, 
mental  as  well  as  physical — the  entire  universe  in  so  far 
as  it  can  be  known  by  man — is  its  field.  It  asserts  that 
the  scientific  method  is  the  sole  gateway  to  the  whole 
region  of  knowledge.  The  touchstone  of  science  is  the 
universal  validity  of  its  results  for  all  normally  consti- 
tuted and  duly  instructed  minds.  Because  the,  glitter  of 
the  great  metaphysical  systems  becomes  as  dross  when 


218  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

tried  by  this  touchstone,  we  are  compelled  to  classify 
them  as  interesting  works  of  the  imagination,  and  not  as 
solid  contributions  to  human  knowledge."  5  "Each  one 
of  us  is  now  called  upon  to  give  a  judgment  upon  an 
immense  variety  of  problems,  crucial  for  our  social 
existence.  If  that  judgment  confirms  measures  and  con- 
duct tending  to  the  increased  welfare  of  society,  then  it 
may  be  termed  a  moral,  or,  what  is  the  same  thing,  a 
social  judgment.  ...  It  cannot  be  too  often  insisted 
upon  that  the  formation  of  a  moral  judgment — that  is, 
one  which  the  individual  is  reasonably  certain  will  tend 
to  social  welfare — does  not  depend  solely  on  the  readi- 
ness to  sacrifice  individual  gain  or  comfort,  or  on  the 
impulse  to  act  unselfishly;  it  depends,  in  the  first  place, 
on  knowledge  and  method.  The  man  who  gives  a  thou- 
sand pounds  to  a  vast  and  vague  scheme  of  charity  may 
or  may  not  be  acting  socially.  .  .  .  The  'philosophical' 
method  can  never  lead  to  a  real  theory  or  morals."  6 

I  do  not  claim  that  sociology  has  already  solved  the 
four  problems  of  ethics;  on  the  contrary,  the  glory  of 
sociology  largely  consists  in  the  fact  that  so  much  of 
opportunity  for  useful  intellectual  achievement  lies  be- 
fore it  especially  in  discovering  what  men  are  required 
to  do.  The  end  of  that  quest  may  well  be  almost  as 
remote  as  the  cessation  of  progress. 

When  Comte  set  out  to  write  a  Positive  Philosophy 
he  discovered  the  necessity  of  a  sociology.  When 
Spencer  set  out  to  write  a  Synthetic  Philosophy  he  made 
the  same  discovery.  That  is  to  say,  when  the  attempt 
was  made  to  focus  the  light  of  the  sciences  upon  the 

"Karl  Pearson,  Grammar  of  Science,  24.     London,  1899. 
'Ibid.,  26. 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     219 

problems  that  are  of  deepest  interest  to  man  and  that 
till  then  had  been  treated  by  speculation  rather  than  by 
the  accumulation  and  interpretation  of  facts,  it  was  dis- 
covered that  a  large  area  of  the  facts  most  closely  related 
to  those  problems  had  not  been  made  the  objects  of  scien- 
tific treatment,  and  that  the  sciences  would  not  be  ready 
to  throw  their  light  upon  these  problems  until  this  area 
of  reality  had  been  investigated  in  a  scientific  spirit  and 
by  scientific  methods. 

Spencer  pointed  out  that  the  long  delay  in  applying 
scientific  methods  to  this  field  of  realities  had  been  due 
in  part  to  the  great  complexity  of  their  causation  and 
the  corresponding  difficulty  of  investigating  them;  and 
in  part  to  the  fact  that  the  very  depth  of  their  interest 
to  man  had  rendered  them  the  subject  of  cherished 
prejudices  which  resisted  the  deliberate  and  impartial 
appeal  to  the  investigation  of  facts,  a  process  always 
dangerous  to  prejudices,  even  to  those  noble  prejudices 
which  are  cherished  as  essential  parts  of  a  theory  of  life 
that  has  been  speculatively  evolved,  and  adapted  to  serve 
the  interests  dear  to  those  who  first  formulated  and  later 
defended  them.  To  this  it  may  be  added  that  the  com- 
plexity of  their  causation  even  allowed  men  to  deny  that 
they  were  caused  in  any  scientific  sense,  and  that  the 
most  cherished  of  the  prejudices  in  regard  to  them  was 
the  belief  that  they  were,  instead,  the  expressions  of 
causeless  freedom  springing  de  novo  in  every  human 
breast. 

There  are  two  ways  in  which  contributions  to  philo- 
sophic thought  have  been  made.  The  earlier  and  more 
characteristic  method  of  philosophy  has  been  the  meta- 
physical. That  is,  to  state  a  vast  and  fundamental  prob- 


220  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

lem  in  the  abstractness  appropriate  to  its  generality,  and 
then  to  reflect  upon  it  in  the  light  of  such  knowledge  as 
might  chance  to  be  at  the  command  of  the  thinker  and  of 
such  hypotheses  as  might  chance  to  form  themselves  in 
his  mind.  The  other  and  more  scientific  method  lias 
been  to  start  with  some  single  fact  or  class  of  facts  and 
painstakingly  to  accumulate  particulars  related  to  that 
fact  or  class  of  facts,  as  elements  into  which  it  might  be 
analyzed,  as  conditions  of  its  manifestation,  or  as  conse- 
quences of  its  presence,  so  that  these  facts  of  observation 
and  the  hypotheses  which  they  seemed  to  demand,  might 
be  knit  together  in  thought  into  a  correlated  unity,  be- 
lieved to  correspond  to  a  portion  of  the  unity  of  nature. 
Scientific  generalization  does  not  start  from  the  vast 
problems  of  "being,"  "essence,"  etc.,  and  come  down 
toward  specific  realities  which  require  to  be  explained, 
but  starts  with  the  specific  reality  and  carries  its  expla- 
nation out  and  out  as  far  as  it  can.  It  never  gets  beyond 
the  causal  conditioning  in  which  all  phenomena  hang 
together.  Some  phenomena  have  more  complex  condi- 
tioning than  others  and  could  not  come  into  existence  till 
previous  combinations  and  recombinations  had  ripened 
the  situation  for  them.  Their  explanation  requires  a 
very  inclusive  survey  of  natural  conditioning,  including 
a  recognition  of  previous  combinations  that  were  neces- 
sary antecedents  to  their  appearance.7 

The  attempt  to  account  for  the  varieties  of  concrete 
content  in  the  experience-activity  of  men  in  society,  in 
the  light  of  their  conditions,  would  synthesize  a  large 
portion  of  the  results  of  all  sciences.  It  would  not 

'The  justification  alleged  for  Comte's  hierarchy  of  the  sciences 
of  which  he  makes  sociology  the  highest. 


SOCIAL  ORIGIN  OF  MORAL  CODES     221 

retrace  the  investigations  of  other  sciences  but  it  would 
accept  results  from  many,  perhaps  from  all,  for  the  more 
complex  the  causation  of  any  class  of  phenomena,  the 
more  the  science  which  explains  that  class  of  phenomena 
must  utilize  the  results  of  antecedent  sciences.  This 
biology  well  illustrates.  Sociology  illustrates  it  still  fur- 
ther. Each  of  these  sciences  carries  on  an  investigation 
of  its  own,  but  in  the  pursuit  of  its  own  investigation  it 
synthesizes  results  of  antecedent  sciences.  Sociology 
aims  to  correlate  all  discovered  processes  which  play  a 
part  in  the  conditioning  of  social  life.  The  more  rich 
and  complex  in  its  constitution,  and  in  the  conditioning 
which  it  implies,  and  in  the  manifestations  or  conse- 
quences in  which  it  issues,  the  particular  class  of  facts 
which  is  chosen  as  the  center  of  investigation,  the  wider 
the  circle  of  correlated  phenomena;  that  is,  the  larger  the 
portion  of  the  unity  of  nature  that  is  made  comprehen- 
sible to  the  mind  as  a  result  of  the  investigation.  And 
the  life  which  is  lived  by  men  in  society  is  the  reality,  a 
study  of  which  brings  into  intelligible  correlation  the 
largest  portion  of  the  unity  of  nature  that  can  be  thought 
together  by  the  human  mind.  Therefore,  sociology,  if 
successful  in  its  intellectual  undertaking,  will  be,  in  that 
sense,  the  most  philosophical  of  all  the  sciences. 

This  is  the  same  sense,  however,  in  which  physics  and 
chemistry  and  biology  are  philosophical.  Every  science, 
in  this  sense,  is  philosophical  in  proportion  as  it  cor- 
relates a  large  body  of  constituent  conditioning  and  re- 
sultant phenomena  in  the  explanation  of  a  distinct  class 
of  problem  phenomena.  It  is  in  this  sense  that  sociology 
may  become  the  most  philosophical  of  the  sciences. 
Physics,  chemistry,  geology,  astronomy  and  biology  are 


222  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

the  modern  successors  of  the  ancient  ontology  and  cos- 
mology; psychology,  of  the  ancient  epistemology,  and 
sociology,  of  the  ancient  ethics. 

Sociology,  if  successful  in  its  great  task,  must  be  the 
most  philosophical  of  the  sciences.  Sociology,  however, 
is  not,  and  should  not  be,  philosophical  in  any  other 
sense  than  that  in  which  the  material  sciences  are  philo- 
sophical. It  is  only  more  so  in  degree  because  it  carries 
the  process  of  explanation  by  the  correlation  of  phe- 
nomena a  step  farther. 


CHAPTER  X 

THE  MOTIVES  TO  RIGHTEOUSNESS:    I.    THE  ETHICAL 
FUNCTIONS  OF  HUMAN  PREDISPOSITIONS 

After  the  appeal  to  the  facts  has  answered  the  four 
questions:  What  is  good?  what  is  right?  whence 
come  moral  codes?  and  how  should  those  codes  next  be 
amended?  there  still  remains  a  fifth,  namely:  Upon 
what  motives  can  we  rely  to  secure  conformity  to  the 
adopted  moral  code? 

Religious  writers  declare  that  good  conduct  requires 
of  the  individual  so  much  sacrifice  of  his  own  interest 
to  the  interests  of  others  that  no  one  can  be  expected  to 
be  good  unless  he  is  controlled  by  religious  motives  which 
induce  him  not  to  follow  his  own  selfish  desires  for  this 
life,  but  to  practice  the  conduct  that  secures  the  welfare 
of  others  and  his  own  soul's  salvation  at  the  cost  of 
diminishing  his  natural  gratifications.  They  have  as- 
serted with  the  greatest  emphasis  that  man  must  mortify 
his  natural  desires  in  this  world  in  order  to  secure  divine 
favor  and  reward  and  to  escape  divine  retribution,  and 
that  in  the  absence  of  religious  motives,  built  on  faith, 
men  could  not  be  expected  to  be  good  enough  to  maintain 
an  advanced  and  advancing  society. 

This  is  the  burden  of  the  brilliant  argument  of  Benja- 
min Kidd.  He  avers  that  a  scientific  or  rational  basis 
for  ethics  is  utterly  impossible  and  that  man  is,  therefore, 

223 


224  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

irresistibly  impelled  to  seek  for  supernatural  and  ultrara- 
tional  sanctions  for  right  conduct.  An  observer  of  human 
history  from  another  planet,  says  Mr.  Kidd,  would  every- 
where find  men  "clinging  with  the  most  extraordinary 
persistence  to  ideas  and  ideals  which  regulated  his  life 
under  the  influences  of  religions,  and  ruthlessly  perse- 
cuting all  those  who  endeavored  to  convince  him  that 
these  conceptions  were  without  foundation  in  fact.  At 
many  periods  in  human  history,  also,  he  would  have  to 
observe  that  the  opinion  had  been  entertained  by  con- 
siderable numbers  of  persons,  that  a  point  had  at  length 
been  reached  at  which  it  was  only  a  question  of  time 
until  human  reason  finally  dispelled  the  belief  in  those 
unseen  powers  which  man  held  in  control  over  himself. 
But  he  would  find  this  anticipation  never  realized.  Dis- 
lodged from  one  position,  the  human  mind,  he  would 
observe,  had  only  taken  another  of  the  same  kind  which 
it  continued  once  more  to  hold  with  the  same  unreason- 
ing, dogged  and  desperate  persistence. 

"Strangest  sight  of  all,  the  observer,  while  he  would 
find  man  in  every  other  department  of  life  continually 
extolling  his  reason,  regarding  it  as  his  highest  posses- 
sion, and  triumphantly  reveling  in  the  sense  of  power 
with  which  it  equipped  him,  would  here  see  him  counting 
as  his  bitterest  enemies  worthy  of  the  severest  punish- 
ment, and  the  most  persistent  persecution,  all  who  sug- 
gested to  him  that  he  should,  in  these  matters,  walk 
according  to  its  light.*' 1  His  thesis  is  thus  asserted  by 
this  author:  "No  form  of  belief  is  capable  of  function- 
ing as  a  religion  in  the  evolution  of  society  which  does 
1  Benjamin  Kidd,  Social  Evolution,  98.  New  York,  1895. 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  225 

not  provide  an  ultrarational  sanction  for  social  conduct 
in  the  individual/'  In  other  words,  "a  rational  religion 
is  a  scientific  impossibility,  representing,  from  the  nature 
of  the  case,  an  inherent  contradiction  of  terms/'  2  His 
conclusion  may  be  summarized  in  two  propositions: 
First,  we  must  have  religion;  second,  we  cannot  get  it 
by  the  exercise  of  reason. 

But  in  many  minds,  at  least,  the  rational  process  does 
and  will  dominate.  The  exercise  of  those  faculties  on 
which  in  every  other  realm  of  thought  we  rely  for  guid- 
ance will  not  be  suspended  in  the  interest  of  faith.  More- 
over, the  minds  thus  dominated  by  reason  include  a  con- 
siderable number  of  the  most  instructed  and  the  most 
gifted,  who  could  become  exceedingly  mischievous  and 
destructive  or  highly  useful  and  constructive  members 
of  society.  It  even  seems  likely  that  the  dominating 
class  in  modern  society  will  be  composed  of  such  indi- 
viduals who  walk  by  sight  rather  than  by  faith.  It  is 
not  impossible  that  in  some  of  the  most  advanced  nations, 
like  France  and  Germany,  this  condition  has  already  been 
reached,  and  that  it  cannot  be  permanently  postponed 
in  any  great  nation.  Never  till  recently  has  science  had 
so  compelling  a  voice.  Never  till  recently  has  her  voice 
been  so  clearly  heard  by  large  masses  outside  the  eso- 
teric circle  of  the  learned. 

The  question  which  we  ask  is:  What  guidance  and 
motive  is  there  for  one  who  must  live  by  observation  and 
reason  rather  than  by  "ultrarational"  or  "superrational" 
faith?  Can  such  an  individual  be  expected  to  live,  not 
like  a  splinter  or  a  parasite  in  the  social  body,  but  like 

•Ibid.,  108. 


226  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

a  functioning  part  helping  to  sustain  and  promote  the 
social  life  from  which  he  himself  derives  his  individual 
life?  Can  a  society  made  up,  or  at  least  controlled  by 
such  individuals,  dominated  by  reason  rather  than  by 
faiths  devised  to  suit  the  social  need,  maintain  an  ad- 
vanced and  advancing  social  life  in  which  a  high  level  of 
human  experience  can  be  attained,  and  if  so,  what  are 
the  motives  that  can  secure  such  good  conduct  on  the 
part  of  men  from  whose  minds  the  motives  of  super- 
naturalism  and  of  all  ultrarational  dogmas  have  faded 
away? 

The  commonest  answer  to  this  question  by  those  who 
believe  that  an  affirmative  answer  can  be  given  is  that 
such  men  will  be  intelligent  enough  to  see  that  their  own 
interests  can  be  secured  only  in  a  good  society,  and  that 
for  the  privilege  of  living  in  a  good  society  they  will 
do  what  must  be  done  to  help  maintain  such  a  society, 
yielding  whatever  of  sacrifice  is  required  as  the  price  of 
all  the  advantages  they  gain  from  the  developed  social 
state. 

That  is  like  saying  that  intelligent  men  would  pay 
their  taxes  ff  there  were  no  compulsion.  But  would 
they,  or  would  they  say :  "At  this  particular  time  I  need 
the  money  more  than  the  state  does;  if  I  keep  my  money 
I  get  the  whole  benefit  of  it,  while  if  I  pay  it  I  get  only 
a  little  share  in  what  it  buys;  besides,  my  paying  taxes 
will  not  insure  that  others  will  pay  theirs"?  It  is  true 
that  if  all  pay  as  they  should,  then,  although  the  tax- 
payer gets  only  a  little  share  of  what  his  money  buys, 
he  gets  a  similar  share  in  what  is  bought  by  the  money 
of  other  citizens,  and  so  on  the  average  by  the  cooper- 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  227 

ation  he  gets  more  than  his  own  contribution  by  itself 
would  purchase.  On  the  average  he  gets  more  than  he 
gives.  But  there  is  no  averaging  of  the  payments  of 
moral  duty.  There  is,  in  the  first  place,  no  certainty 
that  without  compulsion  others  will  do  their  part,  and 
that  my  idealism  will  not  cause  me  to  perish  in  an 
unideal  world.  And  in  the  second  place,  moral  duties  are 
not  assessed  on  any  basis  of  equality  of  sacrifice.  In- 
stead, duty  requires  of  certain  individuals  at  certain 
junctures  sacrifices  that  no  mere  calculation  of  their 
private  interest  in  maintaining  the  social  situation  can 
be  relied  upon  to  prompt.  It  is  no  doubt  often  necessary 
to  social  progress  that  gifted  youths  should  prefer  use- 
fulness with  self-respect  and  the  love  of  a  few  to  money 
and  place.  But  will  that  realization  uphold  the  resolu- 
tion of  a  given  youth  when  tempted,  like  Jesus  in  the 
wilderness,  to  follow  the  easy  deviation  that  leads  from 
service  to  conventional  respectability  and  wealth?  It  is, 
no  doubt,  socially  desirable  that  an  engineer  alone  in  the 
bowels  of  a  sinking  ship  should  do  his  duty  till  the  last 
passenger  has  been  removed.  But  will  that  generali- 
zation keep  this  particular  engineer  at  his  post  ?  Men  do 
such  things  from  altruism,  self-respect,  and  social  disci- 
pline, but  not  from  calculated  interest  in  maintaining  the 
social  order  for  their  own  benefit.  We  cannot  be  con- 
tent with  the  easy  answer  to  the  present  question  which 
merely  says  that  each  intelligent  man,  in  the  enlightened 
pursuit  of  his  own  interest,  will  do  his  duties  for  the 
sake  of  living  in  a  society  in  which  all  men  do  their 
duties.  A  man  will  not  lay  down  his  life  for  the  salce 
of  living  in  a  society  in  which  all  men  do  their  duties, 


228  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

And  men  must  sometimes  lay  down  their  lives.  Pure 
selfishness,  however  enlightened,  would  rather  live,  rich 
and  conspicuous,  in  a  world  made  slightly  worse  by  its 
own  sins  than  crucify  any  strong  desire  for  the  sake  of  a 
coming  kingdom  of  righteousness. 

We  must,  therefore,  take  a  careful  and  somewhat 
anxious  inventory  of  the  resources  on  which  we  can 
depend  for  moral  motives  in  a  world  that  walks  by  sight. 
In  doing  so  we  do  not  here  propose  to  attempt  an  evalua- 
tion of  all  the  propensities  of  human  nature  with  ref- 
erence to  their  social  or  antisocial  character,  but  only  to 
enumerate  those  which  play  the  chief  roles  in  causing 
good  and  evil.  Moreover,  our  analysis  is  qualitative 
rather  than  quantitative.  The  preponderance  of  good  is 
not  insured  even  though  we  find  that  man  has  tendencies 
which,  when  they  dominate  his  conduct,  make  him 
behave  like  a  good  and  social  being.  A  single  evil 
prompting  may  triumph  over  any  number  of  good  ones, 
just  as  in  another  instance  a  single  good  tendency  may 
triumph  over  any  number  of  evil  ones.  The  only  ques- 
tion which  we  attempt  to  answer  is:  Has  man  tenden- 
cies which  will  secure  good  conduct  provided  they  can  be 
made  dominant?  If  he  has,  the  practical  problem  will 
remain  of  creating  a  social  situation  in  which  the  better 
tendencies  will  be  called  into  action  and  in  which  indi- 
vidual opinions,  sentiments,  and  habits  will  be  formed 
in  accordance  with  the  socializing  tendencies  of  man's 
nature.  If  this  result  is  attained  it  will  be  both  through 
unplanned  social  evolution  and  through  conscious  organ- 
ization of  society  and  education  of  its  members. 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  229 

NATURAL  RESOURCES  OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS: 
SENSITIVENESS  TO  SOCIAL  APPROVAL  AND  DISAPPROVAL 

The  motives  of  religion  are  all  social  motives.  That 
is,  they  depend  on  our  thought  of  some  other  person  who 
approves  or  disapproves  our  conduct.  The  fact  that 
this  other  person  is  thought  of  as  Divine,  the  Judge  of 
all  the  Earth,  or  the  Divine  Companion,  is  what  gives 
to  religious  motives  their  superiority  over  motives  sup- 
plied by  earthly  rulers,  by  public  opinion,  or  by  regard 
for  friendship.  There  is  no  essential  difference  in  kind, 
but  only  in  degree,  between  fear  of  Hell  and  fear  of  the 
hangman,  between  desire  for  Heaven  and  desire  for 
position  in  good  society  on  Earth,  between  regard  for  the 
favor  toward  us  and  the  grief  or  joy  in  us  of  God  and 
regard  for  the  favor,  grief  or  joy  of  parents  and  friends. 

Not  only  do  religious  motives  have  incalculable  emo- 
tional power,  but  "the  eye  of  God  sees  everywhere"  so 
that  regard  for  Him  deters  from  secret  sins  in  which' 
men  think  that  the  human  beings  for  whom  they  care 
will  never  detect  them,  and  even  quenches  sins  of  the 
heart.  Moreover,  the  standards  of  the  Divine  Associate 
are  perfect  while  the  men  and  women  about  us  may 
condone,  or  even  approve,  conduct  that  is  below  the  best 
we  know.  In  these  three  things  lies  the  tremendous 
value  of  religious  motives  and  their  power  to  ennoble 
the  individual  and  to  uplift  and  stabilize  society.  It 
would  be  well  for  every  man,  whatever  his'  faith  or  lack 
of  it,  to  live  as  he  would  if  he  were  always  in  the 
presence  of  a  Divine  Companion. 

To  subtract  from  the  world  religious  motives  in  their 
highest  form  would  be  an  incalculable  loss,  but  it  may  be 


230  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

that  other  motives  to  right  conduct,  as  social  evolution 
proceeds,  will  greatly  gain  in  definiteness  and  power,  as 
well  as  in  the  universality  with  which  they  will  be  incul- 
cated. And  the  loss  of  supernaturalism  would  by  no 
means  leave  us  bankrupt  of  social  motives,  for  human 
associations  would  remain  and  regard  for  the  rewards 
conferred  and  the  punishments  inflicted  by  our  fellow 
men,  for  their  favor  or  disfavor  and  for  their  grief  or 
joy  in  us,  is  identical  in  kind  with  regard  for  the  punish- 
ment and  favor  of  God.  The  rewards  and  punishments 
of  men  are  far  from  negligible.  Success  and  happi- 
ness in  this  world  depend  on  conformity  to  social  stand- 
ards. The  power  of  men  to  detect  our  character  is  by 
no  means  slight.  Even  when  none  know  all  our  deeds 
of  good  or  evil  they  are  not  likely  greatly  to  misappre- 
hend our  true  quality.  And  the  men  and  women  whose 
favor  and  friendship  is  best  worth  having  judge  us  by 
exacting  and  ennobling  standards.  Even  if  they  are  not 
able  themselves  to  embody  the  ideal  they  are  at  least  able 
to  appreciate  in  others  either  departure  from  it  or  con- 
formity to  it.  The  ideal  which  we  attribute  to  God  first 
arose  in  the  minds  of  men.  Gods  have  not  always  been 
noble  and  are  never  nobler  than  the  ideals  dictated  by 
the  hearts  and  minds  of  the  men  who  worship  them.  The 
religious  motive  at  its  best  is  only  the  apotheosis  of  the 
social  motive.  And  in  a  world  of  men  who  walk  by  sight 
the  social  motive  to  right  conduct  would  be  both  en- 
nobling and  powerful.  The  ideal  would  be  one  of  social 
service,  enforced  by  all  the  hopes  and  fears  that  gather 
about  our  fellow  men.  The  social  motive,  even  without 
a  Divine  Associate,  is  still  the  strongest  that  sways  us, 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  23  r 

stronger  in  normal  life  than  hunger  or  sex.  Men  "seek 
glory  e'en  at  the  cannon's  mouth,"  and  find  in  their 
relations  with  their  kind  both  happiness  and  despair. 

There  are  also  other  sources  of  motive  to  right  con- 
duct that  will  remain,  whatever  may  become  of  the 
poetry  of  the  Invisible,  motives  that  are  inherent  in 
human  nature  and  of  which  we  cannot  be  deprived, 
motives,  moreover,  which,  like  the  social  motives,  increase 
in  social  serviceableness  with  social  progress.  Counting 
as  first  among  the  natural  resources  of  righteousness 
man's  tremendous  sensitiveness  to  social  approval  and 
disapproval,  the  other  elements  of  human  nature  upon 
which  we  must  mainly  rely  are,  second,  altruism;  third, 
self-respect  or  pride;  fourth,  ethical  feelings  of  repug- 
nance and  disgust,  attraction  and  enthusiasm;  and  fifth, 
reason. 

While  the  motives  next  to  be  discussed  are  distinct 
from  the  social  motives,  they,  like  all  other  ethical 
motives,  depend  for  the  direction  in  which  their  power 
impels  us  upon  the  particular  society  or  societies  from 
which  we  derive  the  content  of  our  life.  As  has  been 
clearly  pointed  out,  we  should  not  have  an  ethical  code 
any  more  than  a  language  except  as  members  of  a  society 
that  has  an  ethical  code  and  a  language.  But  our  prob- 
lem here  is  not  whether  men  can  have  an  ethical  code 
without  supernaturalism.  That  question  no  longer 
troubles  us.  The  present  question  is  whether  without 
supernaturalism  we  can  have  adequate  motives  for 
obedience  to  such  a  code. 

We  have  just  seen  that  society  which,  through  com- 
mon experience  and  the  insight  of  moral  leaders,  more 


232  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

or  less  perfectly  discovers  the  requirements  of  social 
life,  has  power  to  enforce  those  requirements  upon  us 
by  every  form  of  earthly  reward  and  punishment,  in- 
cluding the  penalties  and  rewards  of  social  exaltation 
and  debasement,  love  and  despair.  While,  however,  we 
depend  on  society  so  largely  for  the  conscience  code,  we 
are  by  no  means  equally  dependent  on  society  for  motives 
to  obey  the  code.  There  are  motives  that  prompt  us 
quite  irrespective  of  whether  our  fellow  men  approve 
or  disapprove,  reward  or  punish.  The  force  of  these 
motives  is  as  independent  of  the  detection  of  our  evil  or 
the  recognition  of  our  good  by  men  as  is  regard  for  all- 
seeing  Divinity.  Even  repentance  before  God  is  reen- 
forced  by  shame  before  men,  and  the  social  pressure 
backs  up  every  kind  of  motive  to  good,  as  good  is  under- 
stood by  society,  but  the  motives  now  under  discussion 
are  no  more  dependent  on  the  pressure  exerted  by  human 
society  than  is  the  fear  of  God.  The  weary  mother  in 
the  night  does  not  hasten  to  minister  to  her  crying  baby 
out  of  regard  for  any  one's  approval  or  reward,  or  fear 
of  censure  or  penalty.  Human  nature  is  social  nature. 
We  have  developed  in  the  horde,  the  clan,  the  family,  the 
neighborhood,  and  the  neighborhood  is  widening  to  in- 
clude the  world.  The  altruism  of  its  members  has  sur- 
vival value  for  the  group  and,  therefore,  has  been  fos- 
tered by  natural  selection.  Groups  exterminate  many  of 
their  parasites,  and  groups  of  individuals  who  were  mere 
parasites  upon  each  other  could  not  well  survive.  Here 
we  are,  the  products  of  our  past;  we  should  not  be  here 
if  we  were  wholly  unfit  by  nature  for  that  cooperation 
which  is  the  condition  sine  qua  non  of  human  life. 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  233 

ALTRUISM  AS  ONE  OF  THE  RESOURCES  OF 
RIGHTEOUSNESS 

It  is  true  that  sheer  altruism  is  often  pitifully  feeble 
in  comparison  with  other  promptings  and  must  be  sup- 
plemented by  other  motives  of  our  nature  and  by  social 
pressures  if  cooperative  social  life  is  to  succeed.  It  is 
not  equal  to  all  the  tasks  of  social  order  and  progress, 
but  neither  is  it  our  sole  dependence  for  order  and 
progress.  All  order  and  progress  depend  upon  a  high 
degree  of  mutual  serviceableness,  but  mutual  service  is 
not  solely  dependent  on  the  instinct  of  altruism.  In- 
stinctive altruism  is  only  one  of  four  elements  on  which, 
in  addition  to  social  pressures  and  incitements,  including 
the  matter  of  fact  inducements  of  quid  pro  quo,  we  de- 
pend for  securing  services.  Native  altruism,  however, 
though  only  one,  is  a  highly  important  one  among  the 
factors  of  the  situation. 

Altruism,  like  other  instinctive  promptings,  may  even 
at  times  go  to  excess  and  require  to  be  moderated  and 
controlled,  as  notoriously  it  does  in  the  case  of  parents 
who  "spoil"  their  children  when  they  have  the  power  to 
do  so  much  for  them  as  to  foster  parasitism,  inhibit  the 
exercise  of  altruism  on  the  part  of  the  children,  or 
remove  the  occasion  for  developing  self-reliance  and 
self-control. 

The  idea  that  egoism  is  sin,  if  not  indeed  the  sum  of 
all  sin,  and  that  altruism  is  righteousness,  if  not  the  sum 
of  all  righteousness,  taken  without  qualification  or  analy- 
sis, embodies  a  pernicious  blunder.  It  is  indeed  true 
that  most  people  are  not  altruistic  enough  to  meet  the 


234  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

demands  of  social  organization  without  the  aid  of  social 
pressure  and,  in  consequence,  preachers  of  righteousness 
exhort  us  to  altruism  and  warn  against  egoism.  But  it 
is  far  from  true  that  desires  for  our  own  life  and  happi- 
ness are  wrong.  Neither  is  it  true  that  every  altruistic 
impulse  should  be  obeyed.  The  type  of  altruism  is  in 
the  relation  of  mother  to  child,  and  there  are  many 
mothers  who  would  spoil  their  children  if  there  were  not 
a  father  either  less  altruistic  or  more  reasonable.  "The 
greatest  thing  in  the  world"  is  not  altruistic  impulse  but 
justice,  that  is  to  say,  the  rectification  of  the  impulses 
by  reason. 

From  one  point  of  view  it  may  even  be  argued  that 
altruism  is  itself  a  form  of  selfishness.  It  would  be  pain 
to  a  normal  mother  to  hear  her  baby  crying  while  she 
was  prevented  from  ministering  to  it,  and  when  freed  to 
do  so  she  would  rush  to  it  with  a  sense  of  relief,  and 
would  gather  it  to  her  with  joy  in  the  action  that  brought 
back  its  smiles.  It  would  be  painful,  more  or  less,  for  a 
normally  altruistic  man  to  refuse  direly  needed  aid  to 
any  one  whom  he  included  in  his  circle  of  fellowship, 
and  helpfulness  is  rendered  to  those  within  our  group 
with  a  certain  gratification  to  the  person  ministering. 
From  these  facts  it  is  possible  to  argue  that  in  order  to 
be  logical  we  must  say  that  altruistic  experience,  being  a 
good  in  itself,  is  as  selfishly  sought  as  any  other,  thus 
arriving  at  the  paradox  that  there  is  no  such  thing  as 
unselfish  motive,  because  the  man  who  obeys  a  sympa- 
thetic prompting  is  'gratifying  the  craving  of  his  own 
nature  as  truly  as  he  who  satisfies  any  other  appetite. 

That  is  true  to  the  extent  that  all  of  a  mart's  acts  are 
the  expression  of  his  own  nature.  If  by  egoism  w$ 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  235 

mean  the  sum  total  of  the  individual's  promptings,  then 
egoism  includes  all  man's  vices  and  all  man's  virtue: 
cruelty  and  gluttony  and  also  magnanimity  and  devotion. 
Used  in  that  sense,  the  word  egoism  loses  all  ethical  sig- 
nificance. And  this  line  of  argument  is  superficially 
employed  by  some  to  obscure  the  existence  of  ethical 
distinctions.  But  it  remains  true  that  just  as  there  is 
a  difference  between  a  bright  man  and  a  stupid  one,  or 
between  a  brave  man  and  a  coward,  so  there  is  a  clear 
difference  between  an  altruistic  man  and  a  selfish  man. 
It  must  be  remembered  that,  from  the  evolutionary 
point  of  view,  gratification  is  not  the  raison  d'etre  of 
instinct  but  only  a  subordinate  element  in  it.  Instinct 
is  the  inherited  capacity  and  tendency  to  perform  neces- 
sary functions  in  the  presence  of  appropriate  stimuli. 
The  social  instincts  are  predispositions  to  perform  the 
functions  necessary  to  maintain  group  life  and  to  secure 
advantages  to  the  species,  but  not  necessarily  to  the 
actor.  Purely  instinctive  acts  are  not  performed  from 
balanced  calculation  of  anticipated  gratification,  but  as 
organic  reflexes.  "I  hate  to  get  mad,"  said  an  undis- 
ciplined young  woman,  "but  I  just  can't  help  it."  The 
man  of  ungovernable  temper  often  deplores  the  fact  and 
in  swashbuckling  times  he  involves  himself  in  combats  so 
unequal  as  to  invite  suffering  and  even  death.  He  does 
all  this,  not  because  the  pleasure  of  getting  angry  excites 
such  strong  desire,  but  because  the  organic  impulse  func- 
tions. The  altruistic  man,  like  the  angry  man,  in  spite 
of  calculated  recognition  that  the  cost  will  far  outweigh 
any  advantages  to  himself,  or  in  complete  oblivion  of 
all  calculation  may  obey  his  promptings  to  self-devotion. 
The  angry  man  and  the  altruistic  man  might  behave  as 


236  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

they  do  because  of  an  instinctive  delight  which  they 
expect  to  find  in  rage  or  altruism,  if  it  were  true  that 
they  anticipated  such  delight.  But  altruism  is  so  char- 
acteristically costly  to  the  actor  and  rage  so  characteris- 
tically perilous  that  it  is  no  wonder  if  nature  has  given 
up  attempting  to  make  these  instincts  specially  delight- 
ful and  has  depended  chiefly  on  sheer  organic  propulsion. 
Typically,  neither  anger  nor  altruism,  neither  the  desire 
to  destroy  nor  the  desire  to  preserve  another,  depends 
merely  on  the  pleasure  contained  in  the  angry  or  the 
altruistic  act.  A  man  who  is  capable  of  such  instinctive 
altruism  has  in  that  respect  a  high  degree  of  adaptation 
to  social  life.  He  is  very  different  from  the  man  who 
is  dominated  by  other  instincts  which  show  themselves 
in  gluttony,  laziness,  lecherousness,  and  cruelty  and  who 
is  incapable  of  devotion;  just  as  in  respect  to  anger  the 
natural  fighter  differs  from  the  natural  coward.  With 
these  facts  in  mind  the  statement  that  altruism  is  a  form 
of  egoism  amounts  to  the  triumphant  claim  that  normal 
mothers  and  some  men  are  so  adapted  to  group  life  as  to 
be  powerfully  prompted  to  serve  others  at  whatever  cost 
of  personal  comfort  or  gratification. 

However,  it  would  in  no  wise  detract  from  the  excel- 
lence of  altruistic  conduct  if  it  were  more  highly  grati- 
fying to  the  actor  than  it  is.  To  think  that  is  simply  to 
misapprehend  the  nature  of  virtue.  The  old  notion  that 
virtue  is  will  triumphing  over  our  depraved  nature  is 
false.  Altruism  as  a  form  of  instinctive  propulsion  is 
as  real,  though  not  as  conspicuous,  a  part  of  our  nature 
as  any  of  the  forms  of  selfishness.  Moreover,  will  is 
an  even  completer  expression  of  our  nature  than  anger, 
lust,  or  any  vagrant  impulse,  for  what  we  mean  by  "will" 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  237 

as  contrasted  with  "mere  impulse"  is  action  that  ex- 
presses a  judgment  as  well  as  an  un judged  instinctive 
prompting.  Thus,  the  courage  that  is  most  heroic  is  not 
the  mad  fury  of  the  angry  man  but  that  which  overcomes 
fear  by  the  motives  of  self-respect  and  of  deliberately 
accepted  duty.  And  the  cowardice  that  is  mean  is  not 
instinctive  fear  but  rather  the  inability  to  overcome  fear 
by  these  higher  motives.  And  altruism  itself  is  most 
noble  when  the  generous  impulse  is  guided  by  rational 
judgment.  The  virtuous  act  may  be  preferred  in  full 
consciousness  that  it  costs  the  sacrifice  of  some  less  noble 
prompting,  both  because  of  the  power  of  instinctive 
altruism  and  also  because  the  altruistic  impulse  may  ally 
itself  with  other  elements  of  our  nature.  Virtue  is  not 
triumph  over  self  but  the  exhibition  of  a  nobler  self 
triumphing  over  some  impulse  that  is  merely  the  func- 
tioning of  some  fragment  of  our  nature.  The  newer  and 
truer  view  of  will  and  virtue  does  not  deny  nobility;  it 
denies  only  that  nobility  is  inconsistent  with  our  own 
nature,  that  it  is  the  triumph  of  a  momentary  fiat  over 
settled  depravity. 

Righteousness  includes  altruism,  but  it  is  more  than 
altruism:  it  is  the  balanced  operation  of  all  normal 
motives  under  the  presidency  of  reason. 

If  righteousness  were  merely  altruism,  then  each  of  us 
would  be  normally  responsible  for  the  values  to  be 
realized  by  others,  and  none  of  us  responsible  for  the 
values  to  be  realized  in  his  own  experience,  when  the 
fact  is  that  each  is  morally  responsible  in  proportion  to 
his  power,  and  our  power  is  greatest  over  the  fulfillment 
of  our  own  good  possibilities,  and  those  of  our  own 
household.  The  Golden  Rule  would  be  reduced  to  an 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

absurdity  if  it  were  made  to  mean  that  I  and  mine  shall 
have  no  more  of  my  income  or  of  my  effort  than  every 
neighbor,  to  the  remote  Samaritan.  The  Golden  Rule 
means  that  we  must  estimate  the  values  realized  in  the 
experience  of  every  neighbor,  to  the  remotest,  at  its  full 
worth,  and  instead  of  caring  only  for  the  good  to  be 
realized  by  ourselves  and  our  nearest,  we  must  have 
regard  for  all  the  interests  that  can  be  affected  by  our 
deeds,  and  be  governed  by  regard  for  them  in  proportion 
to  our  power  over  them. 

Although  one's  responsibility  for  the  worth  of  his  own 
life  is  greater  than  for  the  life  of  any  other  one,  yet  his 
responsibility  and  power  over  all  the  other  lives  he  can 
affect  may  in  the  aggregate  exceed  that  which  he  has  for 
his  own  life,  and  the  other  values  that  may  be  realized 
by  his  effort  may  far  exceed  those  attainable  in  his  own 
experience.  Hence,  one  who  plans  his  life  work  with 
exclusive  regard  to  his  own  good  is  a  recreant  member  of 
the  commonwealth.  If  each  would  be  guided  by  refer- 
ence to  all  the  values  which  he  could  affect,  in  proportion 
to  his  power  over  them,  then  all  would  work  together  in 
the  attainment  of  a  general  well-being,  no  values  being 
disregarded  or  violated,  but  all  values  sought,  even 
though  realized  by  the  Samaritans,  and  at  cost  to  our- 
selves. There  would  be  no  fat  obesity  greedily  gor- 
mandizing in  the  presence  of  the  living  skeletons  of 
want.  Not  money  only  but  the  inestimably  more  pre- 
cious thought,  work,  power  of  men  would  be  spent  in 
the  cooperative  enterprise  of  realizing  the  values  which 
none  of  us  in  isolation  can  attain. 

Though  altruism  is  not  the  whole  of  righteousness,  yet 
the  judgment  of  the  world  is  not  wrong  in  giving  to  altru- 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  239 

ism  the  first  place  among  the  virtues,  provided  by 
altruism  we  understand  not  merely  the  instinctive 
prompting  but  the  instinctive  prompting  married  to  that 
which  we  have  called  "the  rational  imperative."  Altru- 
ism, thus  defined,  is  living  as  if  we  were  what  in  fact 
we  are,  members  of  society,  not  isolated  individuals,  not 
independent  in  the  attainment  and  enjoyment  of  our  own 
happiness  nor  irresponsible  in  the  exercise  of  our  own 
powers. 

The  distortion  of  life  to  which  we  are  most  prone  is 
selfishness.  The  rebalancing  which  life  most  needs  is 
rational  altruism.  The  cult  we  need  is  the  cult  of  service. 
Here  we  come  again  within  sight  of  the  great  truth  pro- 
claimed by  Professor  Josiah  Royce  in  his  Philosophy  of 
Loyalty  that  man  becomes  fully  man  only  in  loyalty  to 
some  object  greater  than  himself,  "to  some  cause/'  said 
Professor  Royce.  To  his  group,  the  sociologist  would 
say,  his  group,  which  on  one  occasion  may  be  a  company 
of  two  or  three,  and  on  another  occasion  may  be  his  city 
or  his  nation  or  humanity,  but  always  loyalty  to  his 
group,  not  to  some  lesser  group,  which  is  only  a  larger 
and  more  dangerous  form  of  selfishness,  but  to  the  whole 
group  of  human  beings  whom  his  present  act  affects. 
Membership  is  the  characteristic  of  humanity,  from  the 
primitive  horde  to  cosmopolitan  civilization.  All  the 
human  life  we  have,  that  is,  all  the  life  we  have  that  is 
over  and  above  the  functioning  of  our  animal  organisms, 
all  we  have  that  is  distinctly  above  the  life  of  the  highest 
of  the  dumb  brutes,  is  a  participation.  This  participation 
implies  a  loyalty,  and  without  loyalty  that  rises  upon 
requirement  to  devotion  men  are  less  than  human  in  char- 
acter. Without  such  loyalty  it  seems  that  they  cannot  be 


240  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

humanly  happy.  Men  can  have  pleasures  without  happi- 
ness. They  can  find  a  degree  of  pleasantness  in  life  and 
yet  miss  its  satisfaction,  which  many  of  the  wisest  aver 
comes  only  to  those  who  are  dominated  by  the  social 
spirit,  the  spirit  of  service. 

What  is  it  that  makes  the  heart  sing?  is  one  of  the  pro- 
foundest  of  questions,  and  its  answer  is  not  obvious  to 
inexperience.  Our  discussion  brings  us  here  once  more 
face  to  face  with  the  truth  to  which  John  Stuart  Mill  has 
testified  in  his  autobiography  already  quoted,  where  he 
says  that  after  years  of  experiment  with  the  attempt  to 
live  in  accordance  with  the  utilitarian  philosophy  he  had 
learned  that  the  happiness  of  the  individual  could  not  be 
caught  when  pursued,  but  came  as  the  incidental  result  of 
pursuing  some  other  aim.  Goethe's  Faust  is  by  general 
consent  of  the  competent  the  supreme  literary  expression 
of  the  great  century  of  literary  expression  in  which  it  was 
produced.  It  holds  this  place  by  virtue  of  being  the 
supremely  impressive  presentation  of  the  true  answer  to 
the  great  question:  What  is  good  for  man?  And  the 
answer  given  is  that  the  hour  to  which  the  heart  of  man 
cries,  "Tarry  for  thou  art  fair,"  comes  not  in  carnal 
pleasure,  beauty  of  art,  wealth,  power,  or  fame,  but  in 
service  to  our  kind  which  enlists  our  energies  with  full 
consent  of  our  social  nature,  and  full  conviction  that  it 
is  worth  while  because  it  ministers  to  the  largest  values 
which  we  can  affect.  To  share  in  the  common  life  is 
the  good,  to  share  its  pleasure,  beauty,  wealth,  and  power 
while  helping  to  create  them.  From  the  time  of  Solomon 
to  that  of  Goethe,  Mill,  and  Royce  the  same  verdict  is 
reechoed,  which,  if  true,  is  the  profoundest  lesson  of 
human  experience;  namely,  that  though  one  be  the 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  241 

wisest  of  men  and  the  richest  of  kings,  though  he  build 
himself  houses  of  cedar,  provide  men  singers  and  womea 
singers  and  deny  himself  nothing  that  heart  can  wish, 
all  his  self-indulgence  and  self-seeking  is  "vanity  and 
vexation  of  spirit."  "He  that  seeketh  his  life  shall  lose 
it"  and  only  "he  that  loseth  his  life  shall  find  it"— find  it 
in  escaping  from  the  paltriness  and  futility  of  mere  indi- 
vidualism to  the  satisfaction  and  worth  of  constructive 
participation  in  the  social  life,  of  which  each  one  of  us  is 
in  fact  a  part;  and  from  which  in  fact  we  each  derive 
all  that  lifts  us  above  the  level  of  dumb  brutes.  It  is 
individuality  alone  that  has  worth,  but  the  individuality 
that  has  worth  is  attained  only  by  participation. 

The  religion  of  supernaturalism  has  not  been  predomi- 
nantly altruistic.  In  general,  it  has  sought  first  the  sal- 
vation of  the  individual  soul,  prosperity  on  earth  through, 
divine  favor,  and  an  eternity  of  bliss  in  heaven.  To  live 
the  altruistic  life  in  the  spirit  of  participation  in  the 
process  of  social  activity  is  itself  a  religion.  And  when 
its  comradeship  with  all  that  is  noble  in  the  life  of  our 
kind,  and  its  concert  of  endeavor  in  bringing  to  realiza- 
tion all  the  values  that  are  to  be  lost  or  won  in  human 
experience,  are  made  the  central  cult  of  a  new  religion, 
who  shall  say  that  it  will  leave  the  heart  cold,  or 
righteousness  without  propulsion?  Such  a  cult  can  be 
fostered  with  no  strain  between  the  heart  and  the  intelli- 
gence. It  is  not  as  the  symbol  of  a  mystic  creed  which 
many  honest  souls  cannot  accept,  and  to  which  many  cling- 
with  dubious  faith,  but  it  is  rather  as  the  embodiment 
of  this  ideal  of  service  that  the  cross  of  Christ  draws  alt 
men  unto  Him. 


242  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

ETHICAL  IDEALISM  AS  ONE  OF  THE  RESOURCES 
OF  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

Besides  that  native  altruism  which  in  fainter  or 
stronger  degree  is  characteristic  of  all  the  gregarious 
mammals,  another  natural  foundation  for  social  order 
and  progress  exists  in  ethical  idealism.  There  are  no 
savages  so  low  that  they  do  not  display  esthetic  suscepti- 
bility. We  trade  with  them  by  offering  colored  beads 
which  they  prize  as  we  prize  diamonds  and  rubies.  In 
decorations  on  Australian  boomerangs,  in  flowers  twined 
in  the  Papuans'  kinky  hair,  in  the  rhythmic  dance  and 
chant  and  tom-tom  beat  and  mystic  ceremonies  to  feared 
or  friendly  gods  is  shown  the  same  trait  of  human 
nature  which  is  manifested  in  our  more  developed  arts 
and  ceremonies.  And  ethical  estheticism  is  as  early  de- 
veloped as  that  which  responds  to  material  beauty. 
Gratitude  that  never  forgets  a  kindness ;  venge fulness  as 
a  cherished  obligation  that  never  forgets  an  injury  that 
has  been  inflicted  on  a  fellow  clansman;  obedience  to 
taboos  that  dominate  the  appetites  for  food  and  sex ;  fair 
play  that  makes  the  savage  Maori  at  night  lay  bundles  of 
weapons  at  the  entrance  to  the  defenses  of  a  beleaguered 
foe,  that  the  fight  may  be  renewed  with  chivalry  in  the 
morning;  the  stoicism  of  the  tortured  Indian;  fidelity  to 
chiefs  and  everywhere  loyalty  to  the  horde,  appeal  to  the 
sense  of  ethical  idealism,  while  their  opposites  excite  re- 
pugnance and  disgust.  Just  as  there  are  some  material 
objects  too  disgusting  to  smell  or  taste  or  touch  and  some 
that  attract  and  hold  us  in  enjoyment,  so  also  there  are 
forms  of  conduct  that  are  repugnant  and  others  that  in- 
spire us  to  emulation  and  enthusiasm.  Just  what  material 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  243 

objects  will  seem  attractive  and  what  repugnant,  whether 
we  relish  Limburger  cheese  and  horse  flesh  or  hate  the 
thought  of  eggs  or  milk  as  some  Africans  do,  depends 
mainly  on  social  influences.  Likewise,  just  what  conduct 
we  shall  regard  with  disgust  and  what  with  enthusiasm  is 
equally  dependent  on  social  causes.  But  the  capacity  for 
these  discriminations,  and  the  disposition  to  form  them, 
is  one  of  the  inherent  characteristics  of  human  nature. 
We  shrink  from  shattering  beauty  and  rejoice  in  the 
creation  of  it,  whether  that  beauty  is  material  or  ethical. 
We  hold  him  a  vandal  who  ruthlessly  dashes  in  pieces  a 
beautiful  vase  or  bedaubs  a  lovely  picture.  To  send  can- 
non shells  crashing  through  the  windows  of  the  cathedral 
of  Reims  seems  to  us  as  dastardly  as  to  take  human  life. 
And  there  needs  to  be  no  watching  policeman  nor  spying 
Mrs.  Grundy  to  make  us  shrink  from  shattering  our  own 
moral  ideal  or  to  win  at  times  our  willing  obedience  to  it. 
It  is  true  that  there  is  so  much  that  is  hideous  in  what 
men  do  and  what  men  make,  in  unkempt  country  hamlets 
and  in  squalid  city  slums,  that  we  may  be  tempted  to  say 
that  in  these  people,  at  least,  there  is  no  sense  of  beauty. 
That  sense  may  indeed  be  little  awakened,  and  over- 
whelmed by  other  motives,  but  the  capacity  for  it  in  some 
degree  is  a  part  of  normal  human  nature.  Similarly  the 
conduct  of  men  is  often  so  sordid  and  so  mean  that  we 
are  tempted  to  say  that  they  have  no  ethical  sensibility. 
It  may  be  undeveloped  in  many,  and  other  motives  may 
dominate  their  habits  of  thought  and  action.  But  who  of 
them  is  unable  to  detect  meanness  in  others  if  not  in  him- 
self ?  The  capacity  for  ethical  loathing  and  admiration  is 
as  inherent  a  trait  of  human  nature  as  the  sense  of 
material  ugliness  and  beauty. 


244  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

Response  to  moral  beauty  and  ugliness,  as  a  guide  to 
conduct,  is  far  from  infallible.  When  has  the  power 
of  supernaturalism  itself  been  infallible  to  keep  men  from 
sin  and  win  men  to  righteous  deeds?  And  are  we  sure 
that  in  placing  our  chief  reliance  upon  motives  drawn 
trom  faith  in  the  unknown  we  have  strengthened  our 
-appeal  more  than  in  future  we  may  do  by  reliance  upon 
the  inherent  tendencies  of  human  nature,  upon  sensitive- 
ness to  social  approval  and  disapproval,  altruism,  ethical 
idealism,  self-respect,  and  reason? 

SELF-RESPECT  AS  A  MOTIVE  TO  RIGHTEOUSNESS 

Esthetic  idealism  which  sees  beauty  in  righteousness 
and  ugliness  in  sin  is  closely  akin  to  self-respect  or  pride, 
which  is  the  third  element  in  human  nature  on  which  we 
may  rely  to  furnish  a  part  of  the  motives  to  righteous- 
ness. But,  though  closely  akin,  pride  and  ethical  idealism 
are  not  one  and  the  same.  We  can  be  proud  only  of  our 
own  conduct  or  of  that  of  some  one  belonging  to  our 
group  with  whom  we  share  a  common  identity;  but  we 
may  feel  esthetic  approval  for  the  conduct  of  an  Indian  or 
a  Maori  or  a  Samaritan.  We  may  revolt  at  the  violation 
of  the  ethical  standard  and  kindle  toward  obedience  to 
it  as  objectively  and  unselfishly  as  we  admire  a  stained- 
glass  window.  The  revulsion  or  the  tug  of  ethical  ugli- 
ness or  beauty,  unlike  pride,  is  not  dependent  on  the  fact 
that  these  qualities  belong  to  me  or  mine.  Pride  involves 
an  additional  element  and  is  the  expression  of  an  addi- 
tional trait  of  our  nature.  A  carpenter  may  be  induced 
to  build  a  beautiful  table  partly  because  he  has  the 
capacity  to  appreciate  its  design  and  partly  because  he 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  245 

has  a  capacity  to  delight  in  his  own  skill  and  the  exer- 
cise of  it.  Similarly,  men  may  be  induced  to  build  a 
beautiful  life  partly  because  they  have  the  capacity  to 
distinguish  between  beauty  and  ugliness  in  human  con- 
duct and  partly  because  they  have  the  gift  of  pride. 
Although  we  can  scarcely  be  conscious  of  beauty  in  our 
own  conduct  without  being  proud  of  it,  yet  the* conscious- 
ness of  beauty  and  the  pride  are  not  one  and  the  same. 

It  is  not  always  the  appreciation  of  beauty  that  gives 
direction  to  our  pride.  We  may  be  proud  of  conduct 
that  is  not  beautiful.  We  may  be  proud  of  folly,  of 
scalps,  of  success  in  crime,  of  ill-won  dollars,  as  well  as 
of  the  worthiest  achievement.  We  may  be  proud  of 
anything  that  we  can  identify  with  our  own  deliberate 
intention.  But  in  proportion  as  we  are  neither  unreason- 
able nor  unesthetic  we  do  not  identify  ourselves  with 
what  is  morally  ugly  or  absurd.  Provided  we  have 
adopted  developed  ideals  and  reasonable  intentions  as 
our  own,  the  realization  of  those  ideals  and  the  fulfill- 
ment of  these  intentions  are  urged  upon  us  by  our  pride. 
Thus,  pride  may  become  noble. 

Not  only  is  the  capacity  for  ethical  idealism  native  to 
man,  and  pure  altruism  on  certain  occasions  as  spon- 
taneous and  uncalculated  an  expression  of  human  nature 
as  anger  or  hate,  but  also  right  conduct  which  our 
impulses  otherwise  would  not  prompt  nevertheless  be- 
comes a  form  of  self-expression  through  the  intervention 
of  the  inhibiting  and  impelling  power  of  pride.  Just  as 
a  soldier,  unlike  the  angry  individual  who  in  his  madness 
rushes  into  self -destructive  single  combat,  may  force  him- 
self in  spite  of  trembling  knees  to  face  the  foe  according 
to  his  ideal  of  soldierly  conduct,  so  a  husband  or  friend 


246  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

or  citizen  may  recognize  that  his  relationship  demands  of 
him  generous  behavior,  fidelity,  constancy  and  sacrifice 
that  he  cannot  withold  without  forfeiture  of  self-respect. 
One  of  the  most  ingrained  propensities  of  man  is  to  strive 
for  a  satisfying  self-sense.  This  propensity  exhibits  it- 
self in  the  most  trivial  and  in  the  noblest  forms  of 
self -judgment,  in  the  fop  before  the  mirror,  in  the 
trickster  gleeful  over  his  craftiness,  in  the  lone  savage 
exultant  over  his  kill,  and  also  in  the  martyr  serene  before 
the  headsman's  block  and  in  every  man  who  realizes  what 
are  the  demands  of  social  relationship  and  prizes  his  own 
integrity.  Such  a  man,  perceiving  that  the  good  of 
humanity  cannot  be  attained  without  certain  forms  of 
restraint  and  of  cooperative  endeavor  on  the  part  of  indi- 
viduals, concludes :  "Then  I,  for  one,  must  practice  these 
restraints  and  these  endeavors  or  forfeit  the  right  to  be 
in  my  own  eyes  a  normal  member  of  society." 

One  reason  why  pride  is  so  generally  regarded,  not 
as  an  ally  to  virtue,  but  as  a  vice,  is  the  fact  that  men 
may  glory  in  rudimentary,  unformed  and  even  grotesque 
personal  ideals.  The  ideals  of  virtue  itself,  among  primi- 
tive peoples,  are  often  rudimentary,  unformed  and  gro- 
tesque. Pride  in  ignoble  forms  of  success  for  the  most 
part  is  merely  evidence  of  lack  of  cultural  development, 
either  of  the  society  or  of  the  particular  individual. 
Whatever  the  ideals  and  aims  of  the  individual  are,  pride 
furnishes  a  motive  to  realize  those  aims  and  ideals,  and 
if  the  result  is  bad  the  fault  is  not  in  pride  as  a  human 
trait  but  in  the  low  aims  and  ideals.  The  major  fault  of 
pride  that  makes  it  so  often  array  its  power  on  the  side 
of  evil  and  not  on  the  side  of  good  is  that  pride  tends 
to  be  invidious.  We  have  an  instinctive  tendency  to  re- 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  247 

joice  in  superiority  and  leadership.  Leadership  is  a  social 
necessity,  and  the  disposition  to  strive  for  excellence  and 
leadership  is  as  truly  a  desirable  social  instinct  as  the  dis- 
position to  glorify  and  loyally  follow  acknowledged 
superiors.  But  the  former  instinct,  when  it  is  mere  un- 
tutored instinct,  finds  gratification  when  others  are 
inferior  as  well  as  when  we  ourselves  are  excellent.  This 
causes  the  meanness  of  gossip,  which  talks  down  the 
absent.  It  prompts  efforts  to  impede  the  success  of 
others,  which  is  the  meanness  of  a  runner  who  fouls  a 
rival  in  a  race.  Pride  when  it  is  noble  measures  success, 
not  by  the  failure  of  others,  but  by  the  conformity  of  its 
possessor  to  a  fixed  objective  standard.  Invidious  pride 
prompts  men  to  deceive  themselves  by  exaggerating  their 
own  comparative  excellence  and  unjustly  to  disparage 
others.  The  only  pride  that  is  a  vice  is  that  which 
measures  itself  by  other  men  and  not  by  any  fixed  stand- 
ard; and  the  only  humility  that  is  a  virtue  is  humility, 
not  before  other  men,  but  before  the  ideal  standard  to 
which  all  men  should  aspire. 

Pride  becomes  the  ally  of  virtue  when  social  culture 
is  adequate  to  secure  the  recognition  and  adoption  of 
ennobling  ideals  and  aims.  The  vices  of  invidious  pride 
need  only  to  be  exposed  for  what  they  are  to  be  con- 
demned by  pride  itself.  Pride  brings  to  the  reenforce- 
ment  of  our  ideals  and  aims,  whatever  they  are,  whether 
rudimentary,  unformed  and  grotesque  or  reasonable  and 
splendid,  one  of  the  most  powerful  of  the  motives  of 
human  nature.  The  pride  of  a  reasonable  being,  reared 
by  a  society  that  holds  and  inculcates  developed  standards, 
is  an  ennobling  and  powerful  motive  to  righteousness. 

The  satisfaction  of  our  sense  of  personal  power  and 


248  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

personal  worth  is  so  large  an  element  of  human  happi- 
ness that  the  Stoics — the  wisest  men  of  Greece  and  Rome 
— maintained  that  in  comparison  with  this  satisfaction  all 
others  are  relatively  negligible,  and  held  that  if  this  deep 
serenity  be  retained  all  other  losses  should  be  unable  to 
overwhelm  the  calm  of  the  philosopher.  "No  one  can 
deeply  harm  you  but  yourself,"  they  said.  "You  are  the 
keeper  of  your  life's  worth.  You  could  make  yourself 
a  liar  or  a  thief,  or  otherwise  despicable  and  base  in  your 
own  eyes,  but  no  other  can  make  you  so.  And  while  you 
keep  the  personality  with  which  you  alone  are  entrusted 
unmutilated  by  any  act  of  your  own,  you  retain  the 
deepest  source  of  human  happiness." 

The  values  that  enter  into  the  sum  of  human  happi- 
ness, as  we  have  seen,  are  of  five  kinds:  physical,  intel- 
lectual, esthetic,  social,  and  personal.  And  we  are  en- 
titled to  add  that  desire  for  each  of  the  five  with  the 
exception  of  the  physical,  tends,  with  the  progress  of 
social  culture,  to  become  the  ally  of  virtue.  Of  pride, 
or  the  desire  for  personal  satisfactions,  we  have  just  seen 
that  it  readily  comes  onto  the  side  of  righteousness.  It 
can  sink  as  low  as  crude  and  perverted  aims,  but  rises 
as  high  as  ethical  idealism  and  intelligence  rise  in  defining 
those  aims  with  which  in  their  inmost  thought  men  iden- 
tify themselves  with  full  consent.  Before  that  we  saw 
that  the  esthetic  interest,  the  love  of  beauty  and  hate  of 
ugliness  in  human  conduct,  is  on  the  side  of  virtue.  And 
before  that  we  saw  that  desire  for  social  satisfactions 
turns  virtue  into  the  best  policy,  and  if  it  is  a  selfish 
motive  it  is  no  more  so  than  the  desire  for  heaven  or 
the  hope  to  prosper  in  basket  and  store  by  supernatural 
favor  or  to  live  on  terms  of  friendship  with  a  Divine 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  249 

companion.  Human  love  and  desire  for  the  favor  and 
dread  of  the  disfavor  of  human  kind,  in  normal  life 
furnish  the  motives  which,  possibly  excepting  those  of 
pride,  are  the  most  powerful,  universal,  and  unremitting 
of  all,  and  the  ones  on  which,  if  physical  health  be  taken 
for  granted,  the  happiness  of  human  life,  which  is  social 
life,  most  largely  depends.  And  the  social  motives  are 
with  all  their  might  on  the  side  of  so  much  virtue  as  the 
society  to  which  we  want  to  belong  appreciates.  And 
finally,  we  shall  point  out  that  desire  for  the  one  remain- 
ing type  of  satisfaction,  that  is,  curiosity,  interest,  the 
craving  for  mental  experience,  the  intellectual  prompting, 
is  distinctly  on  the  side  of  virtue. 

If  all  this  be  true,  why  is  it  that  there  is  so  much  evil- 
doing  in  the  world  and  so  great  need  of  more  social 
conduct?  Why  is  it  that  man  is  so  often  and  with  so 
much  reason  regarded  as  "born  to  evil  as  the  sparks  fly 
upward,"  and  as  "totally  depraved"  by  nature  and  capable 
of  adjustment  to  the  social  requirements  only  through  a 
supernatural  rebirth? 

It  is  in  part  because  men  are  governed  not  alone  by 
their  calculated  desires  but  also  by  wayward  instincts 
that  do  not  depend  for  their  power  upon  plans  for  happi- 
ness. In  part  it  is  because  the  physical  desires  are  non- 
moral,  that  is,  ethically  neither  good  nor  bad.  Most  of 
all  it  is  because  man  becomes  human  in  any  complete 
sense,  only  as  a  result  of  social  or  cultural  evolution, 
and  the  masses  of  men,  even  yet,  are  far  from  having 
reached  the  culmination  of  the  process  by  which  our  ideal- 
ism, our  pride,  and  our  social  ambitions  and  desires  are 
enlisted  to  their  utmost  on  the  side  of  virtue.  Finally,  it 
is  in  part  because  the  economic  means  of  satisfying  our 


250  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

desires  are  limited  in  supply  and  what  one  has  another 
cannot  have,  and  because  economic  services  often  cost 
irksome  effort. 

Expanding  a  little  the  first  of  these  four  statements,  we 
observe  that  such  promptings  as  those  of  fear,  anger, 
hate,  and  altruism  do  not  depend  for  their  power  upon 
any  balanced  estimate  of  pleasure  to  be  obtained.  Nor- 
mally a  man  no  more  gets  angry  or  frightened  because 
he  wants  to  than  he  sneezes  because  he  wants  to.  We 
are  equipped  with  certain  instinctive  promptings  that  do 
not  need  to  be  reenforced  by  desire.  These  impulses  are 
by  no  means  wholly  bad.  They  even  include  altruism 
itself.  Indeed,  they  are,  none  of  them,  wholly  bad. 
What  are  commonly  regarded  as  the  worst  of  these  im- 
pulses are  a  large  part  of  the  time  on  the  side  of 
righteousness.  Even  anger  and  hate  are  evoked  against 
what  we  regard  as  wrong  and  prompt  us  to  resist  evil. 
But  all  of  these  impulses,  from  anger  to  altruism,  require 
the  guidance  of  enlightenment.  The  instincts  of  an 
insect  are  excited  by  obvious  stimuli,  but  the  stimula- 
tions of  human  instincts  are  often  obscure  and  remote. 
When  man  is  stimulated  only  by  the  obvious,  he  errs  and 
sins,  he  is  the  victim  of  "misunderstanding,"  "prejudice," 
and  "shortsightedness."  But  enlightenment  tends  to 
mitigate  hate  till  it  resembles  our  repugnance  against  de- 
formity and  disease,  and  tends  to  turn  anger  into  zeal  in 
overcoming  obstacles  to  the  execution  of  wise  purposes. 
Not  that  enlightenment  and  social  culture  will  ever 
banish  all  antisocial  conduct.  The  horde-beast  man  may 
never  be  perfectly  adapted  to  advanced  society.  But  the 
best  individuals  show  what  human  nature  is  capable  of, 
and  some  of  these  best  owe  nothing  to  the  motives  of 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  251 

supernaturalism.  It  would  probably  be  quite  unwise  to 
wish  away  any  of  the  instincts  of  man. 

As  to  the  second  of  the  causes  named  above  for  the 
prevalence  of  antisocial  conduct,  the  worst  that  can  be 
said  of  the  physical  pleasures  is  that  they  are  in  them- 
selves neither  right  nor  wrong,  but  are  heedless  of  ethical 
considerations  and  urge  us  to  seek  gratification  when 
gratification  is  not,  as  well  as  when  it  is,  in  accord  with 
ethical  requirements.  This  is  indeed  bad  enough,  but  it 
is  not  a  mark  of  depravity.  Depravity  appears  when  the 
nonphysical  motives  are  not  strong  enough  to  regulate 
the  physical.  And  even  then,  what  we  call  depravity  is 
not  a  fall  from  a  previous  high  estate  but  is  rather  un- 
derdevelopment.  The  underdevelopment  sometimes  is 
physical,  as  in  the  feeble-minded  and  the  born  criminal, 
but  in  general  it  is  social  underdevelopment.  However 
prevalent  failure  at  this  point  has  been,  millions  of  indi- 
viduals have  shown  the  adequacy  of  other  impulses  and 
desires  to  bring  the  physical  desires  within  the  limits 
required  by  social  welfare. 

The  third  cause  for  antisocial  conduct  which  we  named 
above  was  the  incompleteness  of  the  ethical  evolution  of 
society  and  of  the  ethical  education  of  individuals.  The 
character  that  is  required  by  advanced  society  can  be 
expected  only  of  those  whose  individual  life  is  partici- 
pation in  a  developed  social  culture.  It  may  be  the  Chris- 
tian culture,  or  the  culture  of  the  Stoics,  of  the  scientific 
culture  that  will  prevail  in  coming  centuries.  It  cannot 
be  doubted  that  culture  of  all  three  of  these  types  has 
produced  characters  of  lofty  nobility.  Nor  have  these 
three  types  of  culture  alone  produced  nobility.  As  sav- 
ages in  their  weaving  and  pottery  have  exhibited 


252  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

admirable  beginnings  of  esthetic  arts,  so  also  they  have 
begun  to  produce  ethical  cultures.  But  lofty  character, 
adapted  to  the  requirements  of  an  advanced  society,  must 
always  be  a  product  of  social  evolution.  The  more 
matured  and  the  more  scientific  the  culture  of  a  society 
becomes,  the  more  clearly  will  be  seen  the  differences 
between  the  socially  destructive  forms  of  conduct  and 
those  which  are  socially  constructive.  And  when  the 
ethical  judgments  are  not  confused  and  bewildered  but 
far  more  clearly  formed  than  now,  and  formed  not  only 
in  the  minds  of  scientists  or  seers  but  adopted  and  incul- 
cated by  a  developed  common  sense,  and  the  sanctions  for 
these  requirements  are  acknowledged  to  be  rational  and 
not  merely  conventional  nor  supernatural,  it  may  be  that 
we  shall  succeed  better  than  now  in  keeping  the  gratifi- 
cation of  physical  appetites  within  the  bounds  that  reason 
and  experience  prescribe,  and  in  mitigating  hatreds.  We 
may  even  hope  to  reduce  the  temptations  to  wrong-doing 
that  arise  from  the  scarcity  of  economic  goods  and  the 
irksomeness  of  economic  services,  by  a  wiser  and  juster 
organization  of  our  institutions  and  customs.  Our  hope 
will  not  be  in  eradicating  any  human  instinct  or  native 
tendency,  but  in  eliciting  human  motives  that  have  power 
to  inhibit  injurious  manifestations  and  to  prompt  those 
which  are  in  accord  with  the  demands  of  social  life. 

INTELLIGENCE  AS  ONE  dp  THE  RESOURCES  OF 

RIGHTEOUSNESS 

The  last  in  our  enumeration  of  the  desires  3  was  curi- 
osity, the  urge  to  know,  interest,  desire  for  intellectual 
experience.  Intelligence  may  be  made  the  instrument  for 

'As  enumerated  on  pages  248,  249. 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  253 

gratifying  every  other  desire,  good  or  bad,  but  the  intel- 
lectual desire  itself  is  characteristically  on  the  side  of 
right. 

This  is  because  the  intellectual  prompting  impels  us  to 
search  out  the  facts  of  life,  and  the  meaning  of  our  deeds, 
not  distorted  as  love,  hate,  partisanship,  and  every  other 
hot  desire  would  have  us  see  them,  not  as  pointed  out  by 
an  advocatus  diaboli  that  would  have  us  heed  only  the 
temptation  of  the  passing  hour,  but  as  they  actually  exist. 
The  mind  is  like  the  eye  that  sees  what  is  before  it  even 
when  we  hate  to  see  it.  It  is  true  that  impulse  may  often 
make  us  blink  and  turn  aside  from  seeing,  yet  the  hunger 
to  know  is  always  urging  us  to  look.  And  though  indi- 
viduals may  blind  themselves,  in  the  long  run  society, 
conspiring  with  our  intelligence,  will  hardly  let  us  escape 
the  facts.  The  mind  with  its  eagerness  to  perform  its 
function  of  knowing,  and  equipped  with  the  results  of 
past  experience  and  observation,  forecasts  the  future  con- 
sequences of  our  deeds  and  their  effects  on  all  who  come 
within  the  radius  of  our  power.  It  protests  against  our 
cherished  illusions  and  bigotries  and  discloses  to  us  the 
injustice  of  our  prejudices  and  partisanships.  And  if  the 
average  man  refuses  to  discover  the  facts  which  conflict 
with  his  passions,  his  mind  cannot  always  be  so  debauched 
as  not  to  see  those  facts  when  they  are  pointed  out  to  him 
by  others  who  do  not  share  the  particular  prejudices  or 
interests  that  have  turned  aside  his  own  vision.  Pride 
and  the  social  motives  may  be  brought  to  the  side  of 
virtue,  but  the  urge  to  know  is  always  on  the  side  of  vir- 
tue. It  is  the  urge  to  know,  to  see  things  as  they  are,  that 
exposes  the  meanness  of  invidious  pride  which  deceives 
itself  by  discounting  the  excellences  of  others  and  exag- 


254  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

gerating  its  own,  and  that  furnishes  to  pride  its  juster 
aims.  It  is  this  same  prompting  that  pierces  hypocrisy 
and  goes  far  to  purge  social  ambition  of  pretense.  Virtue 
is  nothing  else  than  adaptation  to  the  facts  of  life,  which 
intelligence  discloses.  The  demands  of  virtue  are  no 
other  than  the  demands  of  the  actual  conditions  under 
which  human  values  must  be  realized,  when  those  condi- 
tions and  those  values  are  estimated  in  precise  accordance 
with  all  the  observable  facts.  Thus  intelligence  defines 
for  virtue  its  standards. 

The  chief  natural  resources  of  righteousness  we  have 
seen  to  be  as  many  as  the  fingers  on  a  hand :  ( i )  Sensi- 
tiveness to  social  approval  and  disapproval,  (2)  altruism, 
(3)  ethical  idealism  or  esthetic  discrimination  between 
forms  of  conduct,  (4)  self-respect  or  pride,  (5)  intelli- 
gence. 

Outlining  in  somewhat  greater  detail  the  principal  facts 
mentioned  in  the  foregoing  analysis,  we  have  the  follow- 
ing list  of  elements  affecting  the  contest  between  good 
and  evil: 

1.  The  most  powerful  and  pervasive  motives  in  or- 
dinary  life   arise    from   man's    sensitiveness   to   social 
approval  and  disapproval  and  the  dependence  of  indi- 
vidual happiness  upon  the  attitude  of  our  associates. 

2.  We  have  certain  instincts  which  do  not  depend  for 
their  power  upon  calculated  desire,  or  the  anticipation  of 
pleasure,  including  altruism  and  anger-hate. 

3.  We  have  other  instincts  the  functioning  of  which  is 
so   distinctly   pleasurable   that   we   deliberately   plan   to 
secure  the  pleasures  which  they  bring;  that  is  to  say,  we 
have  desires.     One  important  class  of  desires,  though 
neither  right  nor  wrong  in  themselves,  often,  though  by 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  255 

no  means  always,  urge  to  unethical,  antisocial  conduct, 
namely,  the  physical. 

4.  We  have  also  desires  which,  as  a  rule,  come  to  the 
support  of  ethical  requirements  and  act  as  motives  to 
virtue.    Among  them  are  the  desire  for  beauty  and  hatred 
of  ugliness,  which  in  the  ethical  realm  may  be  called 
idealism. 

5.  The  desire  for  "personal"  satisfaction,  or  the  sense 
of  conformity  with  our  own  ideals  and  judgments,  is  dis- 
tinct from  that  idealism  which  is  esentially  objective  and 
disinterested,  and  with  ethical  culture  it  becomes  a  power- 
ful motive  to   right  conduct.     In  its  untutored   form, 
however,  it  is  associated  if  not  identified  with  invidious- 
ness  and  jealousy.    Our  list  must,  therefore,  include  both 
pride  and  invidiousness. 

6.  How  far  anger  and  hate  can  be  rationalized  into 
repugnance  to  evil  and  resolute  zeal  in  overcoming  the 
obstacles  to  wise  plans,  how  far  physical  desires  can  be 
regulated  so  as  to  promote  physical  life  and  health  and 
humanized  personal  relations,  how  far  invidiousness  can 
be    transformed    into    generous    emulation,    and    pride 
equipped  with  worthy  ideals,  and  how  far  the  social  ambi- 
tions and  desires  can  be  directed  to  coincide  with  actual 
social  needs,  depends  on  the  stage  to  which  the  evolution 
of  reasonable  social  judgments  has  been  brought  and  the 
degree  to  which  these  judgments,  and  the  sentiments  of 
approval  for  them,  have  been  inculcated  in  the  members 
of  the  group  by  social  education  or  socialization  of  the 
individual. 

7.  The  purely  intellectual  desire  impels  toward  the  evo- 
lution of  social,   and  therefore  of  personal  standards, 
formulated  in  the  light  of  the  facts  of  life,  in  sight  of  the 


256 


SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 


actual  conditions  which  prescribe  the  requirements  of 
virtue. 

Arranging  the  principal  factors  arrayed  on  the  side  of 
evil  and  of  good  in  parallel  columns  we  have  the  follow- 
ing lists  : 

Sensitiveness    to    Social     Economic  Scarcity,  Greed 
Approval   and   Disap- 
proval 

Altruism  and  Loyalty 


Idealism,  or  Sense  of 
Moral  Beauty  and  Ug- 
liness 

Pride,  or  Self-respect 
Intelligence,  Justice 

The  Process  of  Social- 
ization 

The  Physical  Desires 
Anger-hate 


Laziness  or  Weakness  of 
Approved  Impulses  (of 
will)  - 


Invidiousness,  Jealousy 
Stupidity,  Bias,  Ignorance 


The  Physical  Desires 
Anger-hate 


No  natural  tendency  of  man  could  be  spared.  Even 
laziness,  which  is  partly,  though  not  wholly,  a  negative 
thing,  is  a  form  of  conservation  of  natural  resources. 
The  armchair  before  the  fireplace  has  a  place  in  life  as 
well  as  the  workbench.  Anger-hate  may  become  resist- 
ance to  evil  and  vigor  in  combating  obstacles.  Altruism 
itself  may  do  harm,  and  hate  itself,  or  rather  that  instinct 
which  in  its  cruder  manifestations  we  call  hate,  may  do 


ETHICAL  FUNCTIONS  257 

good.  The  difference  in  human  motives  which  makes 
some  of  them  appear  to  be  allies  of  good  and  some  to 
be  forces  of  evil  is  largely  in  the  degree  of  readiness  with 
which  they  can  be  socialized,  that  is  to  say,  adjusted  to 
the  requirement  of  advanced  and  advancing  social  life. 


CHAPTER  XI 

THE  MOTIVES  TO  RIGHTEOUSNESS:  II.  SOCIALIZATION 
THROUGH  THE  EXERCISE  OF  REASON 

The  progress  which  is  now  most  needed  by  individual, 
national  and  international  life  is  ethical  progress.  We 
should  be  glad  of  greater  control  over  material  nature, 
of  more  developed  sciences,  and  of  richer  artistic  and 
literary  development.  But  the  progress  which  we  must 
have  is  ethical.  The  advances  already  made,  with  ade- 
quate ethical  progress  added,  would  suffice  to  bring  about 
a  degree  of  general  happiness  such  as  the  world  has  never 
seen.  Whether  it  shall  remain  beyond  our  realization 
while  leaden- footed  centuries  drag  on  and  the  chill  wastes 
of  human  blight  and  misery  grow  no  less,  whether  the 
glimmering  promise  of  that  human  happiness  shall 
always  be  like  the  arctic  sun  that  merely  creeps  along 
the  horizon,  or  whether  the  sun  shall  ascend  in  the  sky 
and  spring  shall  really  come,  depends  upon  whether  we 
can  succeed  in  enlisting  and  controlling  the  resources  of 
human  nature  so  as  to  organize  that  effective  cooperation, 
that  universal  teamwork,  which  alone  can  secure  the 
realization  of  human  possibilities. 

To  this  end  the  world  must  adopt  the  realization  that 
there  is  such  a  thing  as  moral  progress.  The  time  has 
come  when  men  expect  improvement  in  their  mechanical 
devices,  their  business  methods,  and  in  their  laws.  They 

258 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    259 

no  longer  go  on,  generation  after  generation,  practicing 
the  same  old  clumsy  arts  with  no  thought  of  progress, 
suspicious  of  all  change  and  looking  into  the  past  for 
their  teachers.  But  this  change  has  not  generally  taken 
place  with  reference  to  moral  progress.  Each  generation 
tends  to  regard  its  moral  code  as  finished. 

When  private  war  prevailed  the  man-at-arms  had  a 
moral  code  and  a  personal  ideal.  Loyalty  was  its  essen- 
tial feature,  loyalty  and  obedience  to  both  temporal  and 
spiritual  masters.  That  moral  code  did  not  call  in  ques- 
tion the  morality  of  private  war.  Certain  private  wars 
might  be  wicked,  but  private  war,  as  such,  was  taken  as 
a  matter  of  course,  and  was  often  regarded  as  glorious. 
Not  merely  such  relatively  minor  evils  as  the  drunken- 
ness of  the  Saxon  and  the  dueling  that  prevailed  for 
centuries  among  all  proud  men  in  Europe  and  was 
cherished  as  a  "code  of  honor"  have  been  practiced  with 
no  sense  of  bad  conscience,  quite  un forbidden  by  the 
existing  code,  but  also  the  greatest  of  evils  like  slavery 
and  international  war.  Indeed  the  greatest  evil  of  any 
time  is  likely  to  be  uncondemned  by  the  moral  code  of 
that  time.  Evils  like  polygamy,  slavery,  private  war,  and 
absolute  monarchy  are  likely  to  be  greatest  when  the  evo- 
lutionary necessity  for  them  has  passed  but  the  prevailing 
moral  code  has  not  yet  condemned  them. 

Just  as  polygamy,  slavery,  private  war,  and  absolute 
monarchy  may  have  been  necessary  steps  in  social  evolu- 
tion, though  now  outgrown  and  condemned,  so  also 
exploitive  economic  organization,  acquisition  rather 
than  production  as  the  standard  of  business  success,  the 
prostitution  of  the  press  to  commercial  aims  and  com- 
petitive nationalism,  may  have  been  necessary  steps  in 


260  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

social  evolution.  All  temporarily  justified  customs  may 
survive  for  a  time  in  their  full  and  ripe  strength  not 
only  after  they  have  ceased  to  be  necessary  and  have  be- 
come wholly  mischievous,  but  also  after  the  most  social- 
minded  leaders  have  begun  to  condemn  them. 

As  slavery,  polygamy,  private  war,  and  absolute 
monarchy  are  now  condemned,  though  they  were  a  part 
of  the  slow  and  costly  process  of  progress,  so  the  time 
will  come  when  war  as  a  means  of  international  compe- 
tition will  be  universally  and  effectively  condemned,  as 
private  war  is  now,  and  when  the  idea  that  a  legitimate 
business  career  can  be  animated  solely  by  the  desire  to 
get  rich  without  reference  to  the  performance  of  any 
social  service  will  not  only  be  repugnant  to  the  moral 
sense  of  ethical  leaders  but  will  be  so  condemned  by 
prevalent  sentiment  that  only  men  of  the  criminal  class 
will  regard  such  wealth  as  success.  Sir  John  Hawkins 
won  great  glory  among  English  folk,  a  seat  in  Parlia- 
ment, and  the  favor  of  Queen  Elizabeth,  by  his  success 
in  the  slave  trade.  Modern  England  would  hang  him  for 
it. 

The  coming  reorganization  of  business  and  of  inter- 
national relations  will  not  be  brought  about  primarily  by 
laws  and  treaties,  but  will  rest  upon  a  raised  level  of 
moral  common  sense  that  will  condemn  exploitation  and 
war  as  we  have  learned  to  condemn  polygamy,  slavery, 
private  war,  and  political  absolutism — a  level  of  common 
sense  which  has  not  yet  formed  but  which  is  forming. 
The  solution  in  the  international  field  will  never  result 
from  a  balancing  of  the  national  conceit  and  greed  of 
one  people  against  that  of  another,  but  from  the  growth 
of  a  spirit  of  internationalism :  the  honest  recognition  by 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    261 

peoples  of  their  own  past  faults  and  of  the  common 
virtues  and  common  interests  of  humanity.  Under  the 
guidance  of  ethical  leaders  there  will  develop  in  the 
breasts  of  the  masses  a  sense  of  that  human  kinship 
which  is  not  affected  by  political  boundaries  and  a  deter- 
mination to  enforce  the  requirements  of  national  good- 
will against  the  survivals  of  a  less  evolved  morality.  And 
the  solution  in  the  economic  field  will  not  come  by  the 
process  of  class  struggle,  in  which  now  this  and  now  that 
party  takes  its  turn  at  the  trough,  but  it  will  come  through 
honest  recognition  of  the  needs  and  of  the  services  of  all 
and  through  the  dominance  of  a  group,  at  first  perhaps 
of  a  minority  holding  the  balance  of  power  between  the 
contestants,  who  have  regard  for  the  interests  of  all 
parties  and  who  advocate  and  enforce  policies  not  in  the 
spirit  of  greed  but  in  the  spirit  of  justice. 

Two  aims  must  be  held  in  view  in  promoting  moral 
progress,  one  social,  the  other  individual.  The  first  of 
these  aims  is  approximation  toward  a  social  situation  in 
which,  under  ordinary  conditions,  it  will  be  recognized  as 
disadvantageous,  if  not  imbecile,  to  be  bad,  and  in  which 
social  opinion  and  sentiment  will  define  success  in  terms 
of  socially  desirable  character  and  achievement.  The 
second  essential  aim  of  moral  progress  is  the  development 
of  individual  members  of  society  equipped  with  ethical 
discernment  that  will  enlist  on  the  right  side  the  natural 
tendency  to  discriminate  between  human  traits  and  con- 
duct as  beautiful  or  ugly,  and  that  will  enlist  self-respect, 
or  personal  pride,  in  support  of  a  reasonable  ethical  ideal, 
individuals  with  established  habits  of  altruistic  response 
and  enlightened  as  to  the  remoter  consequences  of  their 
deeds. 


262  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

The  realization  of  these  two  aims  must  go  hand  in 
hand.  Common  men  cannot  be  fully  socialized  except  in 
a  society  in  which  it  is  recognized  as  disadvantageous  to 
be  bad,  and  in  which  success  is  defined  in  terms  of  ser- 
viceable achievement.  And  such  a  society  cannot  be 
realized  until  a  considerable  proportion  of  men  are  highly 
socialized.  The  principal  difficulty  of  ethical  progress 
lies  in  the  necessity  of  realizing  these  two  aims  simul- 
taneously. Either  would  be  comparatively  easy  if  the 
other  could  first  be  accomplished. 

In  a  thoroughly  developed  society  it  would  be  easy  to 
be  good.  The  price  of  progress  is  that  some  must  be 
better  than  is  demanded  or  desired.  Conformity  is  the 
usual  method  of  success.  The  world  and  the  kingdoms 
thereof  are  offered  as  the  reward  of  conformity.  The 
world  is  ruled  from  the  crosses  of  the  past,  not  from 
those  of  the  present. 

Hope  lies  in  this :  the  facts  are  on  our  side.  We  need 
only  to  see.  An  ethically  developed  society  is  one  that 
perceives  what  it  is  that  hurts  it  and  what  it  is  that  helps 
it,  and  knows  what  to  insist  upon,  what  to  reward  and 
what  to  condemn.  In  such  a  society  it  would  in  general 
be  imbecile  to  be  bad,  and  success  would  be  defined  in 
terms  of  serviceable  achievement. 

We  can  easily  imagine  a  situation  in  which  it  would 
be  imbecile  for  any  nation  to  go  to  war.  An  eloquent 
writer  has  argued  that  it  is  so  already  and  that  nations 
are  prevented  from  realizing  it  only  by  the  belated  sur- 
vival of  entailed  hatreds  and  mistaken  policies  and  of 
absurd  myths  concerning  national  glory.  If  war  is  not 
already  imbecile  a  situation  in  which  it  would  be  unmis- 
takably so  can  readily  be  devised.  Whether  this  or  any 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    263 

other  great  improvement  in  the  social  situation  can  be 
realized,  depends  largely  upon  progress  in  the  socializa- 
tion of  individual  ambitions. 

Every  ethical  improvement  in  the  social  situation  tends 
to  socialize  individual  ambitions.  The  first  of  the  two 
aims  mentioned  above  was  called  social  and  the  second 
was  called  individual.  But  in  reality  the  second  is  as 
truly  a  social  aim  as  the  first,  so  largely  is  the  individual 
a  social  product.  That  individual  ambition,  to  a  great 
degree,  is  socially  defined  is  one  of  the  established  con- 
clusions of  social  science.  The  ability  regularly  to  punt 
a  football  fifty  yards  is  an  ambition  recently  developed 
among  American  university  students  but  absent  in  France 
and  Germany.  The  vikings'  ambition  to  pillage  and 
slaughter,  the  Philippine  Igorot's  ambition  to  gather 
human  skulls  or  the  American's  ambition  to  amass  dol- 
lars in  millions  beyond  the  possibility  of  personal  use, 
are  other  instances  in  which  a  natural  propensity  is  given 
specific  direction  that  is  no  part  of  the  propensity,  but  is 
determined  by  social  conditions  which  can  be  altered 
whenever  society  so  determines  and  substitutes  condem- 
nation for  applause. 

When  a  type  of  social  ambition  is  once  established  it 
is  not  easily  modified,  but  is,  nevertheless,  as  modifiable 
as  general  opinion  and  sentiment.  And  if  reason  con- 
tinues to  function  and  its  simpler  results  become  the  com- 
mon property  of  society,  then  opinion  and  sentiment  are 
bound,  in  time,  to  be  modified  in  the  direction  prescribed 
by  the  actual  demands  of  general  welfare. 

Ethical  progress  has  been  impeded  because  it  has  been 
too  much  mingled  with  superstition  and  speculation  and 
too  little  guided  by  the  recognition  that  existing  codes 


264  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

are  not  final  and  sealed  by  divine  authority,  and  by  the 
realization  that  character  is  to  be  formed  not  by  miracu- 
lous agency  but  by  intelligent  utilization  of  the  tendencies 
of  human  nature.  And  it  has  been  impeded  by  lack  of 
comprehension  that  ethical  progress,  like  progress  in  agri- 
culture, medicine  or  any  of  the  lesser  practical  arts,  de- 
pends upon  clear-eyed  search  for  the  actual  conditions  of 
human  welfare.  The  sun  may  be  expected  to  shine  for 
a  million  years  to  come ;  it  is  blind  stupidity  to  think  that 
ethical  progress  is  at  an  end.  And  who  is  justified  in 
estimating  by  the  past  the  dependence  of  righteousness 
upon  superstition  or  faiths  concerning  the  unknown? 
Less  than  a  century  ago  men  would  have  said  that  ships 
can  never  dispense  with  sails. 

The  socialization  of  the  individual  does  not  imply  an 
ascetic  ideal.  On  the  contrary,  it  keeps  steadily  in  mind 
that  nothing  is  demanded  as  right  which  does  not  add  to 
the  net  total  of  human  happiness,  and  nothing  is  for- 
bidden as  wrong  which  does  not  in  general  and  on  the 
whole  diminish  the  sum  of  human  happiness.  Nothing 
is  praised  as  beautiful  which  is  not  so  as  a  manifestation 
of  human  traits  and  as  a  promotion  of  human  welfare. 
And  the  responsibility  of  the  individual  to  himself  is  rec- 
ognized as  fully  as  his  power  over  the  welfare  of  others. 
We  have  witnessed  the  capacity  of  human  nature  for 
heroism  and  beneficence  in  too  many  instances  and  among 
peoples  too  diverse  to  tolerate  the  artificial  creed  of  de- 
pravity. At  the  same  time  we  have  witnessed  too  much 
of  meanness  and  baseness  to  take  the  task  of  progress 
lightly.  We  do  not  assume  that  the  time  will  ever  come 
when  all  men  will  be  good.  But  we  cherish  the  hope  of 
progress  and  the  determination  to  promote  it  in  the  rea- 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    265 

sonable  assurance  that  it  is  not  dependent  upon  illusions 
nor  the  elaborate  misleading  of  mankind  but  rather  on 
enlightenment. 

The  progress  of  socialization  implies  not  only  discovery 
of  the  social  conditions  necessary  to  human  welfare,  but 
also  the  development  of  these  discoveries  into  a  body  of 
traditional  judgments  and  sentiments  which  shall  be  as 
much  a  social  product  and  a  common  possession  as  lan- 
guage. This  implies,  along  with  the  gradual  improve- 
ment of  the  moral  tradition,  the  inculcation  of  that  tradi- 
tion in  the  individuals  of  each  rising  generation.  Those 
who  are  to  practice  and  perhaps  improve  the  moral  tradi- 
tion must  first  have  received  it,  and  that  not  merely  as 
a  body  of  doctrine  but  as  a  set  of  habits  and  sentiments. 
It  is  not  difficult  to  impart  to  the  young  the  moral  sen- 
timents actually  in  vogue  in  the  particular  groups  by 
which  they  are  influenced.  That  will  almost  take  care 
of  itself.  The  difficulty  is  in  improving  the  moral  code 
and  embedding  in  the  sentiments  of  each  new  generation 
a  morality  which  as  yet  is  practiced  only  by  the  best. 

When  men  tell  us  that  this  and  that  desirable  reform 
is  Utopian  and  impracticable  because  it  would  require  a 
change  in  human  nature,  they  forget  how  vastly  the  prev- 
alent ethical  sentiments  have  changed.  They  forget 
how  largely  distinctly  human  nature  is  second  nature.1 
All  men  who  fit  to  any  tolerable  degree  into  civilized 
society  have  been  born  again.  They  are  first  born  of 
the  flesh,  and  then  of  social  tradition.  Physical  repro- 
duction gives  us  babies  but  it  never  gives  us  men.  And 

1  Compare  an  article  by  the  present  writer,  entitled  "Education 
for  Personality"  in  The  Educational  Review  for  1914,  475,  also  the 
Section  on  "Education  and  Progress"  beginning  on  page  666  of 
his  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Sociology. 


266  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

whether  a  baby  grows  into  a  real  man  depends  upon 
whether  he  becomes  a  product  not  merely  of  biological 
evolution  but  also  of  social  evolution. 

Childhood  and  youth  are  the  time  for  acquiring  a  so- 
cialized personality.  The  miracle  of  conversion  does 
take  place.  Sometimes  a  criminal  becomes  a  saint.  But 
oftener  he  who  might  have  been  a  saint,  being  once  a 
criminal  remains  so  all  his  life,  and  the  chimney  sweep 
who  might  have  become  a  musician  remains  a  chimney 
sweep.  Conversion  is  pulling  out  a  different  set  of  stops 
in  the  complex  organ  of  the  human  soul.  But  the  soul 
itself  is  not  wholly  inborn,  for  the  soul  is  a  sum  total  of 
capacities  for  action  largely  acquired.2  Sentiments  are 
as  truly  ingrained  organic  tendencies  as  instincts,  but 
they  are  acquired  tendencies.  In  this  respect  they  differ 
from  the  emotional  element  in  instincts  as  habits  differ 
from  the  motor  coordination  in  instincts.  No  man  is 
born  with  a  sentiment  for  the  Stars  and  Stripes  or  for 
the  monogamous  family.  But  all  normal  men  are  born 
with  a  capacity  to  acquire  sentiments,  habits,  and  ideas. 
And  no  man  can  set  limits  to  this  capacity  for  adaptation 
to  social  life.  The  adaptability  of  the  human  animal 
to  social  life  is  not  limited  to  acquiring  mechanical  arts 
and  crafts  but  applies  to  the  whole  range  of  higher  powers 
that  separate  him  from  the  brutes.  The  difference  be- 
tween a  naked  nature-man  gleefully  beating  on  a  hollow 
log  and  a  virtuoso  at  the  piano  is  not  wider  than  the 
difference  between  the  inherited  ethical  nature  and  the 
socialized  individual.  Instincts  somewhat  aided  by  cus- 
toms and  the  power  of  social  approval  and  disapproval 
suffice  in  most  instances  to  furnish  the  ethical  essentials 
a  See  definition  of  soul,  pages  130  note  and  316. 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    267 

for  family  cooperation.  We  have  reached  the  time  when 
greater  possibilities  of  both  good  and  evil  than  existed  in 
a  patriarchal  age  must  be  realized  or  forfeited  by  the 
development  of,  or  the  failure  to  develop,  sentiments 
of  social  approval  and  disapproval  adapted  to  secure  co- 
operation between  individuals  in  a  society  where  there 
is  extensive  division  of  occupations,  and  between  social 
classes  and  nations. 

Is  IT  REASONABLE  TO  BE  GOOD? 

The  defenders  of  fostered  mystery  as  our  hope  for 
goodness,  not  content  with  declaring  that  man  has  not  the 
natural  resources  for  goodness,  have  gone  further  and  as- 
serted that  the  exercise  of  reason  is  hostile  to  righteous- 
ness. Under  this  influence  it  has  become  common  for  men 
to  say  that,  since  goodness  often  demands  sacrifice  of 
individual  to  social  interests,  therefore,  pure  reason  does 
not  sanction  goodness  on  the  part  of  the  individual. 
They  say  that  right  conduct  is  what  all  men  demand  of 
their  neighbors  but  what  no  purely  reasonable  being  would 
do  himself  if  he  could  escape  it.  They  believe  that  when 
men  are  good  it  is  because  a  supernatural  and  superra- 
tional  influence  controls  them.  Thus  religion  so  far 
agrees  with  the  Nietzschean  philosophy  as  to  assert  that 
the  guidance  of  reason  would  make  life  a  struggle  of 
unmitigated  individualism. 

There  is  no  need  of  argument  to  prove  that  man  is 
not  a  merely  reasoning  being.  And  the  foregoing  chapter 
made  it  clear  that  the  other  elements  of  human  nature 
are  by  no  means  wholly  on  the  side  of  the  Devil.  But 
there  is  occasion  for  some  added  argument  to  show  how 


268  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

far  reason  goes  in  bringing  the  other  elements  of  human 
nature  to  the  side  of  right. 

Ethical  progress  like  all  other  progress  consists  largely 
in  the  accumulated  triumphs  of  reason.  If  religion  and 
Nietzscheanism  are  right  and  if  the  more  intelligent  people 
become  the  more  certain  they  are  to  perceive  that  right 
conduct  is  irrational  and  to  be  followed  only  under  com- 
pulsion, and  that  the  requirements  of  law  and  morality 
are  to  be  evaded  whenever  opportunity  and  private  in- 
terest prompt,  if  progress  in  scientific  comprehension  of 
life  is  to  bring  with  it  the  general  conviction  that  will- 
ing conformity  to  law  on  the  part  of  the  individual  is 
unreasonable  subserviency,  what  in  a  scientific  age  will 
become  of  society  and  social  order?  If  this  be  true,  then 
progress  will  consist  in  increasing  skill  in  unmitigated 
strife  in  which  each  struggles  to  thwart  the  will  of  others 
and  to  put  through  his  own. 

We  have  witnessed  a  general  adoption  of  this  view 
not  only  by  believers  in  the  depravity  of  man  and  his 
dependence  upon  supernaturalism  but  also  by  such  writers 
as  Bernhardi,  Treitschke  and  Nietzsche.  Even  the  early 
sociologists  of  Germany  and  Austria  draw  a  bellicose  pic- 
ture. Conspicuous  examples  are  Gumplowiez,8  with  his 
doctrine  of  "conflict  as  the  method  of  progress,"  and 
Ratzenhofer,4  with  his  teaching  that  "absolute  hostility" 
is  implied  in  the  very  nature  of  all  social  evolution. 

It  is  argued  that  an  individual  or  group  can  have  only 
such  rights  to  property  or  privileges  as  that  individual 

•  Gumplowicz,  Der  Rassenkampf,  Part  IV.  Innsbruck,  1909.  Also 
Outlines  of  Sociology,  89,  121.  Translated  by  F.  W.  Moore,  Phila- 
delphia, 1899.  Compare  Simmel,  Soziologie,  145,  151. 

4  Ratzenhofer,  Die  sociologischt  Erkenntnis,  153,  245,  249.  Leipzig, 
1899.  Also  Wesen  und  Zweck  der  Politik,  i.  c.  vii.  Leipzig,  1893. 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    269 

or  group  can  defend;  and  that  rights  are  therefore  ex- 
actly proportionate  to  power ;  that  to  regard  any  economic 
or  political  "right"  as  an  ethical  wrong  is  therefore 
not  only  practically  futile  but  also  scientifically  false ;  that 
it  is  false  because  conflict  is  the  method  of  progress ; 
that  the  world  must  be  ruled,  and  is  best  ruled  by  the 
ablest  who  are  therefore  the  strongest;  that  the  only  way 
to  determine  who  is  ablest  and  strongest  is  by  struggb 
for  supremacy;  and  that  therefore  no  "rights/'  political 
or  economic,  that  can  be  defended  are  ever  anything  but 
right  ethically;  or  rather  that  ethical  right  loses  its  sig- 
nificance swallowed  up  by  rights,  which  are  limited  and 
defined  only  by  might  as  proved  in  the  struggle. 

This  doctrine  is  rendered  more  or  less  popular  in  all 
civilized  countries  by  its  supposed  analogy,  if  not  identity, 
with  the  method  of  biological  evolution.  We  are  told 
that  whether  we  like  it  or  not,  it  is  useless  and  foolish  to 
try  to  repeal  a  law  of  nature,  and  that  it  is  a  law  of 
nature  that  conflict  is  the  method  of  progress  and  that 
for  sane  and  scientific  men  the  issue  of  unmitigated  con- 
flict is  the  only  right. 

This  so-called  "social  Darwinism"  has  not  even  the 
support  of  biological  analogy,  whatever  such  support  may 
be  worth.  The  phrases  "struggle  for  survival"  and 
"survival  of  the  fittest"  have  conjured  up  a  picture  so 
dramatic  as  to  have  captured  the  popular  imagination 
and  sometimes  even  to  make  biologists  forget  their  knowl- 
edge of  biology  when  social  problems  are  discussed. 
That  dramatic  but  imaginary  picture  represents  two 
eagles  tearing  each  other  in  mid-heaven  or  two  tigers, 
one  disemboweling  the  other  in  the  jungle.  But  two 
eagles  do  not  commonly  tear  each  other,  they  tear  rab- 


270  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

bits;  tigers  do  not  commonly  tear  tigers,  but  antelopes. 
Talon  and  fang  are  not  weapons  of  war  but  of  the  chase. 
The  carnivora  kill  for  food  as  we  butcher  beeves  or 
sheep  or  swine.  An  eagle  sits  on  the  top  of  a  solitary 
pine  in  winter  when  food  is  scarce  and  snow  is  on  the 
ground.  He  has  such  telescopic  eyes  that  he  sees  a  white 
rabbit  moving  over  the  snow  half  a  mile  away  and  such 
swift  wings  that  he  catches  the  rabbit  before  it  gets  to 
cover.  Another  eagle  in  the  next  county  sitting  on  a 
pine  has  not  such  telescopic  vision  and  such  swift  wings 
and  so  he  starves.  These  two  eagles  were  struggling  for 
existence  and  the  fittest  survived.  The  struggle  for  food 
is  not  a  battle  of  tooth  and  claw  between  members  of  the 
same  species.  It  is  not  like  a  fight  but  like  a  race  in 
which  the  prize  is  survival.  It  is  competition  and  not 
combat.  The  only  point  at  which  actual  combat  between 
members  of  the  same  species  characteristically  plays  a 
part  in  biological  evolution  is  the  struggle  between  males 
for  mates.  But  even  this  is  more  characteristically  com- 
petition than  combat.  And  among  men  it  goes  on  in 
every  peaceful  society,  offering  no  justification  for  war 
but  only  for  rivalry  between  individuals. 

If  biological  analogy  is  to  be  invoked  in  this  discus- 
sion, its  weight  is  not  on  the  side  of  "absolute  hostility" 
but  on  the  side  of  the  ethics  of  cooperation.  Nature 
exhibits  various  methods  of  securing  survival.  In  the 
lowest  forms  she  depends  upon  mere  multiplicity  of  buds, 
spores,  seeds,  or  eggs,  but  in  mammals,  upon  extreme 
protection  of  a  few  offspring.  In  some  creatures  now 
extinct  Nature  relied  for  survival  upon  mere  floundering 
stupid  bulk.  In  others  still  surviving  the  dependence  is 
placed  upon  specialized  individual  efficiency  like  that  of 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    271 

the  solitary  eagle  and  the  tiger.  But,  finally,  in  the 
highest  animals  Nature  adopts  the  method  of  cooperation. 
Cooperation  is  the  most  efficient  of  Nature's  methods.  In 
general,  the  most  intelligent  animals  are  gregarious,  and 
gregarious  animals  have  proved  their  fitness  to  survive. 
Lions  have  long  been  extinct  in  Europe  but  wolves  still 
exist.  Till  man  arrives  with  firearms,  antelope  and  buffalo 
form  vast  herds.  The  most  intelligent  animals,  being 
gregarious,  are  endowed  with  the  beginnings  of  sym- 
pathy, altruism,  and  loyalty.  Of  this,  the  highest  of 
nature's  methods,  man  is  the  supreme  type. 

Man  is  a  gregarious  animal  equipped  with  a  group 
of  social  propensities,  such  as  sociability,  disposition  to 
communicate,  imitativeness,  dominance  and  subordina- 
tion, partisanship,  sensitiveness  to  social  approval  and  dis- 
approval, loyalty,  and  altruism.  These  propensities, 
though  not  so  cut  and  dried  an  adaptation  to  social  co- 
operation as  the  instincts  of  "the  selfless  bee,"  are,  never- 
theless, a  definite  inborn  adaptation  to  social  cooperation. 
The  gregarious  animals,  including  man,  exhibit  instinc- 
tive adaptations  that  are  wanting  or  rudimentary  in  the 
solitary  beasts.  The  cat  "walks  by  its  wild  lone"  but  the 
gregarious  creatures  manifest  chilly  discomfort  or  even 
distress  and  dread  in  solitude  and  find  satisfaction  in 
the  presence  of  their  kind.  Group  loyalty  makes  the  herd 
of  wild  pigs,  when  one  of  their  number  is  attacked,  more 
formidable  than  a  lion,  makes  the  baboon  risk  his  life 
for  an  associate,  and  laboriously  rear  the  orphans  of 
the  group.  The  social  instincts  are  strong  enough  in  man 
to  establish  a  kind  of  social  order  and  cooperation  in  the 
primitive  horde.  Savages  are  not  savage  toward  the 
members  of  their  own  group.  Though  other  instincts 


272  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

from  time  to  time  triumph  over  the  gregarious  instincts, 
even  within  the  clan,  yet  sociability,  sympathy,  loyalty, 
and  mutual  aid  are  strong  enough  so  that  travelers  among 
primitive  peoples  often  express  amazement  and  even  com- 
pare their  kindliness  and  mutual  help  with  ours  quite  to 
our  disadvantage.  But  toward  those  outside  the  clan  they 
are  likely  to  be  savage  enough;  especially  since  the  out- 
siders, even  we  ourselves,  are  equally  likely  first  to  be 
savage  toward  them. 

The  objector  may  say,  granting  that  cooperation  within 
the  group  is  profitable  and  nature's  highest  law,  do  not 
groups  fight  with  each  other  and  does  not  such  combat 
play  an  essential  part  in  evolution?  The  fact  that  inter- 
group  war  may  have  played  an  evolutionary  part  in  the 
past  would  not  prove  that  it  must  do  so  forever,  any 
more  than  the  fact  that  slavery  was  a  factor  in  progress 
justifies  its  perpetuation.  Social  evolution  has  consisted 
largely  in  widening  the  circles  within  which  cooperation 
prevailed,  from  primitive  hordes  of  a  few  hundred  at 
most,  to  populations  of  millions  and  at  least  one  empire 
on  which  the  sun  never  sets.  The  limit  to  which  this 
expansion  of  cooperation  will  go  will  ultimately  be  de- 
cided by  the  facts.  It  will  go  as  far  as  it  is  profitable. 
Historic  hatreds  and  fostered  prejudices  cannot  forever 
triumph  over  the  fact  that  cooperation  is  advantageous. 
Even  now,  nations  suffer  when  friendly  intercourse  is 
interrupted  and  reciprocal  benefits  cease.  And  sooner  or 
later  it  will  be  seen  too  clearly  to  be  disregarded  that 
for  great  organized  groups  of  men  to  be  divided  from 
each  other  by  tariff  walls  and  barriers  of  invidious  preju- 
dice and  historic  misrepresentation,  denying  the  common 
faults  and  virtues  of  humanity,  is  as  preposterous  as  it 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    273 

would  have  been  for  the  thirteen  American  colonies  to 
fall  apart  into  rival  and  warring  states.  "The  union"  on 
a  world-wide  scale  will  some  day  become  the  issue,  pos- 
sibly of  a  greater  war,  possibly  only  when  war  has  be- 
come a  grotesque  anachronism. 

The  doctrine  that  whatever  can  be  enforced  as  "a  right" 
is  ethically  right  is  nothing  better  than  confusion  of 
thought  between  legal  rights  which  are  based  upon  force 
and  ethical  right  which  is  based  upon  reason.  Legal 
rights  can  be  created  by  custom  or  by  a  sovereign's  decree 
however  tyrannous  and  absurd.  Ethical  right  must  be 
discovered  by  intelligence  and  is  the  method  of  general 
welfare.  Might-made  privileges  are  called  "rights"  by 
a  euphemism  intended  for  the  very  purpose  of  confusing 
them  with  ethical  right.  Ethical  right  is  often  discovered 
and  asserted  as  a  claim  long  before  it  can  be  enforced, 
but  it  is  as  truly  right  before  it  can  be  enforced  as  after. 
Ethical  right  is  a  perfectly  definite  concept.  It  is  action 
which  adds  to  human  happiness  more  than  it  subtracts 
therefrom.  Many  things  that  have  been  put  through  by 
force  were  in  this  sense  demonstrably  not  right. 

It  is  true  that  legal  rights  must  be  enforceable.  It  is 
desirable  that  ethical  right  should  be  enforced.  Our  hope 
that  right  can  be  enforced  is  based  upon  the  facts  that : 
(i)  Right  is  always  the  interest  of  some  one  though  it 
may  be  only  of  the  absent  or  the  unborn;  (2)  usually  it 
is  the  interest  of  the  greater  number;  (3)  usually  also 
the  nominally  disinterested  bystanders  are  more  numer- 
ous and  powerful  than  the  aggressing  party  and  these 
bystanders  fear  aggression,  for  it  may  be  turned  against 
them;  (4)  apart  from  their  fears  the  bystanders  have  an 
interest  in  justice  which,  though  it  may  be  weaker  than 


274  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

selfishness,  is,  nevertheless,  strong  enough  to  arouse  in- 
dignation and  make  men  fight.  For  these  reasons,  in  an 
enlightened  and  aroused  community,  an  individual  acting 
on  the  principle  of  "absolute  hostility"  as  a  rule  would  be 
opposed  by  so  many  that  he  would  be  placed  in  the 
position  of  an  outlaw  and  criminal.  There  is  no  super- 
man who  can  do  his  own  will  without  the  consent  of 
others.  Success  is  essentially  and  inevitably  social  and 
cooperative.  Reasonable  conduct  in  human  society  is  and 
must  always  be  the  devising  and  carrying  into  effect  of 
a  system  of  cooperation. 

For  these  reasons  a  certain  degree  of  cooperation  can 
be  secured  as  a  result  of  pure  self-interest.  Honesty 
becomes  the  best  policy.  Most  men  can  get  more,  or  at 
least  can  enjoy  what  they  get  more  comfortably,  by  do- 
ing something  that  other  men  want  done  and  will  pay 
for,  than  by  stealing.  The  pfredatory  individual  is  likely 
to  be  ostracized,  hated,  and  even  jailed  or  hung.  A 
predatory  group  may  succeed  longer.  But  even  a  preda- 
tory nation  finds  its  potential  victims  too  many  for  it. 
Hardest  of  all  to  dea-l  with  is  a  predatory  system  within 
a  nation,  psychologically  fortified  by  fostered  ideas  and 
sentiments,  prejudices,  and  loyalties.  Even  such  a  sys- 
tem will  at  length  be  understood  and  modified  by  those 
whom  it  victimizes.  Society  is  bigger  and  more  power- 
ful than  recalcitrant  or  predatory  individuals  or  groups, 
and  tends  to  develop  arrangements  for  coping  with  any 
predatory  group.  With  modern  intelligence  and  modern 
facilities  for  communication  the  very  existence  of  a 
predatory  group  tends  to  call  into  being  an  organization 
powerful  enough  to  crush  it.  Society  can  create  a  situa- 
tion in  which  wickedness  will  in  general  be  imbecility. 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    275 

But  society  cannot  use  its  power  except  by  the  exercise  of 
intelligence.  Reason  creates  the  power  of  right.  The 
society  must  be  intelligent  enough  to  discover  what  hurts 
it  and  what  helps  it  and  to  organize  its  system  of  control 
and  cooperation. 

There  may  be  no  possible  system  that  will  produce  only 
good,  but  society  has  incalculable  power  to  suppress  what 
it  sufficiently  condemns  and  to  promote  what  it  sufficiently 
appreciates.  There  is  nothing  mean  about  working  for 
pay,  nothing  despicable  about  self-interest.  And  these 
motives  can  be  evoked  in  all  their  power  by  a  system 
adapted  to  secure  the  general  good.  If  such  methods 
have  failed  till  now  to  secure  a  satisfactory  level  of  gen- 
eral well-being  it  is  largely  because  society  in  general 
has  not  been  intelligent  enough  to  see  what  hurt  and  what 
helped  it,  and  to  organize  its  system  of  control. 

But  we  have  seen  that  ethical  progress  requires  not 
only  the  development  of  an  adequate  system  of  social 
control  in  which  honesty  is  the  best  policy  and  men  will 
work  for  pay  and  serve  others  for  praise,  but  requires 
also  the  socialization  of  the  individual  disposition.  And 
while  supernaturalists  and  Nietzscheans  may  concede  that 
reason  promotes  the  former  they  still  deny  that  it  con- 
tributes to  the  latter.  On  the  contrary,  they  obstinately 
maintain  that  the  exercise  of  pure  reason  prompts  the 
individual  in  his  own  interest  to  struggle  against  the 
system  of  social  control  that  loads  him  with  duties.  They 
may  even  concede  that  man,  being  the  most  evolved  of 
gregarious  creatures,  is  equipped  with  numerous  propen- 
sities adapted  to  social  life — a  life  of  teamwork.  But 
they  point  out  that  the  further  away  we  get  from  the 
state  of  nature  the  severer  the  strain  upon  these  social 


276  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

propensities  and  the  less  adequate  they  are  to  meet  the 
new  requirements  of  the  highly  differentiated  and  wide- 
reaching  social  relationships.  And  to  this  they  add  that 
reason,  instead  of  supplementing  this  inadequacy,  tends 
only  to  lay  bare  the  radical  conflict  between  the  interests 
of  the  individual  and  the  interests  of  the  society  that 
seeks  to  control  him. 

In  opposition  to  this  view  we  are  prepared  to  maintain 
that  pure  reason  tends  progressively  to  extend  the  oper- 
ation of  the  social  propensities  to  the  group  of  a  hundred 
millions,  and  to  remove  the  indifference  of  ethical  ideal- 
ism to  the  ugliness  of  sin  in  the  impersonal  relations  of 
business  and  politics  and  to  assert  the  claims  of  a  rational 
imperative  which  makes  the  personal  ideal  and  the 
promptings  of  altruism  include  the  duties  essential  in  a 
developed  society. 

Let  us  use  the  words  reason,  or  intelligence,  or  cog- 
nitive urge,  to  mean  the  capacity  and  disposition  to  know, 
abstracted  from  every  other  human  instinct,  interest,  or 
tendency.  Of  course,  reason  does  not  exist  apart  from 
the  other  tendencies  of  human  nature,  but  it  may  be 
thought  of  apart  from  them  in  order  to  estimate  its 
peculiar  share  in  the  resulting  conduct.  By  reasonable 
conduct  we  shall  mean  conduct  that  is  guided  by  regard 
for  all  the  recognizable  facts  that  bear  on  the  issue  in 
hand. 

With  reference  to  the  problem  before  us  two  points  of 
view  are  possible:  First,  the  happiness  of  my  neighbor 
is  nothing  to  me;  second,  the  happiness  of  my  neighbor 
is  as  real  to  reason  as  my  own.  If  the  former  point  of 
view  be  the  true  one,  then  no  sacrifice  is  ever  sanctioned 
by  reason ;  that  is,  no  service  can  reasonably  be  performed 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    277 

and  no  indulgence  can  reasonably  be  foregone  for  an- 
other's sake.  And  whenever  such  service  or  sacrifice 
takes  place  it  is  because  some  other  element  in  man's 
nature  than  reason  is  in  control  or  because  he  acts  for 
some  form  of  recompense  or  under  some  form  of  fear 
or  compulsion.  And  in  proportion  as  the  preponderance 
of  reason  in  the  control  of  conduct  is  increased,  disinter- 
ested service  and  sacrifice  will  tend  to  disappear. 

Now,  while  the  happiness  of  another  is  nothing  to 
me  as  a  feeling  of  my  own,  it  is  as  real  to  me  as  an 
objective  fact  as  any  other  objective  fact.  Though  I 
do  not  feel  my  neighbor's  experience  I  may  know  of  its 
existence.  Reason  is  not  a  matter  of  feeling.  It  may  be 
that  abstract  reason  apart  from  feeling  never  becomes  a 
motive  to  conduct;  that  point  we  will  discuss  presently. 
But  that  pure  reason  admits  the  reality  of  the  experience 
of  others  cannot  be  doubted  without  wholly  distorting  the 
concept  of  reason.  The  power  and  tendency  to  know,  like 
every  other  human  power,  is  a  tendency  to  perform  a 
given  kind  of  function  upon  presentation  of  the  proper 
occasion.  Abstractly  considered,  it  is  the  tendency  to 
perform  its  own  function  and  nothing  else,  it  is  the  ten- 
dency to  look,  listen,  explain,  think,  reason,  know.  Its 
function  is  to  supply  us  with  ideas,  and  ideas  furnish  the 
stimulation  for  every  one  of  our  tendencies.  Therefore, 
the  knowing  tendency  is  fundamental  to  every  other,  ex- 
cept mere  chemicophysical  biological  reactions  that  take 
place  without  any  antecedent  idea.  As  the  knowing  func- 
tion is  fundamental  to  all  other  tendencies,  so  also  it  is 
impartial  as  between  all  other  tendencies.  The  knowing 
tendency  seeks  only  to  know,  and  at  worst  is  absolutely 
indifferent  as  to  what  we  do  about  what  we  know.  It 


278  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

simply  impels  us  to  know  things  just  as  they  are  and  just 
as  far  as  we  have  the  power  to  know  them. 

At  worst,  then,  pure  reason  is  absolutely  indifferent 
as  to  what  we  do  about  our  knowledge.  It  seeks  ideas 
without  asking  which  of  our  instincts  will  be  stimulated 
to  action  by  those  ideas.  It  will  call  into  action  the  pro- 
pensity that  is  most  strongly  evoked  by  the  facts  pre- 
sented, whether  it  be  our  most  generous  or  our  most 
selfish,  our  most  serviceable  or  our  most  socially  destruc- 
tive propensity.  Desire  may  pervert  reason  and  make  it 
squint,  welcoming  some  ideas  and  reluctant  to  recognize 
others.  But  pure  reason  itself  is  impartial  as  between 
good  impulses  and  bad  and  just  because  it  is  impartial  it 
is  on  the  side  of  right.  No  impulse  is  bad  unless  it  sac- 
rifices some  other  and  usually  remoter  interest  to  the 
present  gratification.  It  is  reason  that  widens  the  horizon 
to  take  in  the  future  effects  of  our  conduct  and  its  effects 
upon  others  than  ourselves.  We  do  recognize  the  reality 
of  happiness  and  misery  on  the  part  of  others,  though  we 
do  not  feel  them,  and  we  do  foresee  our  own  future 
happiness  or  misery  though  we  do  not  yet  experience 
them.  And  though  desire  so  often  makes  reason  squint 
we  do  often  see  unwelcome  facts.  We  tend  to  see  red  as 
red  and  not  green,  however  much  we  may  desire  to  see 
the  green  signal  of  safety  instead  of  the  red  warning  of 
danger  on  the  path  toward  some  instinctive  gratification. 
Herein  lies  the  value  of  reason.  Thus,  reason  recognizes 
the  fact  that  robbery  impoverishes  the  victim  as  well  as 
enriches  the  thief.  It  recognizes,  in  so  far  as  its  operation 
is  not  inhibited,  the  results  of  our  conduct  to  all  the 
parties  affected.  The  practical  judgment,  "this  is  the 
path  of  the  greatest  satisfaction,"  in  so  far  as  it  is  a 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    279 

purely  cognitive  judgment,  recognizes  as  realities  the  ex- 
periences of  all  those  who  are  affected  by  the  deed. 

Since  these  things  are  so,  reason  becomes  the  parent 
of  justice,  which  is  the  supreme  virtue.  Justice  is  simply 
reasonable  conduct  with  reference  to  the  conflicting  claims 
of  different  persons.  By  reasonable  conduct  is  meant  that 
which  expresses  a  practical  judgment  formed  by  regard 
for  all  the  pertinent  facts,  not  by  regard  for  those  facts 
which  pertain  to  this  party  while  disregarding  those  facts 
which  pertain  to  the  other  party,  but  weighing  in  equal 
scales  the  facts  both  of  my  neighbor's  experience  and  of 
my  own,  my  friend's  experience  and  that  of  my  enemy. 

Reason  transforms  the  other  instincts.  It  does  not 
abolish  instinct.  All  conduct  remains  instinctive.  That 
is,  it  remains  the  expression  of  man's  inborn  propensities. 
But  reason  by  equipping  the  instincts  with  ideas  trans- 
forms their  manifestations  so  that  while  unrationalized 
instinct  could  never  raise  the  life  of  man  much  above  that 
of  the  chimpanzee,  instinct  under  the  presidency  of  rea- 
son produces  saints  and  martyrs,  personal  and  social 
idealism  in  conduct. 

Reason  transforms  the  manifestations  of  instinct  in 
two  ways.  First,  reason  discovers  the  occasions  for 
instinctive  action.  Thus  the  reasonable  man  finds  incite- 
ments to  action,  not  only  in  the  sense  perceptions  of  the 
present  but  also  in  reasoned  conclusions  concerning  the 
future  and  the  absent.  Second,  reason  invents  modes  of 
conduct  which  become  a  part  of  instinctive  conduct  as 
soon  as  their  fitness  to  promote  instinctive  activity  is  per- 
ceived. For  example,  the  angry  man  does  not  merely 
bite  and  strike  as  untaught  instinct  prompts.  He  may 
write  a  violent  letter  or  poison  a  well.  And  the  altruistic 


280  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

man  may  not  simply  give  alms  but  enact  factory  laws  and 
building  regulations  or  endow  a  newspaper. 

The  most  important  point  in  the  present  connection  is 
the  way  in  which  reason  exalts  altruism  and  widens  its 
scope.  It  is  true  that  instinctive  altruism  functions  only 
within  the  circle  of  fellowship,  and  that  the  boundaries 
of  that  circle  are  very  fluctuating.  Beyond  that  circle  as 
it  is  drawn  at  any  moment  the  social  instincts  do  not  func- 
tion and  cruelty  may  prevail.  The  inborn  altruism  of 
kind-heartedness,  though  infinitely  precious  within  the 
radius  of  personal  intimacy,  until  reason  widens  its  scope, 
does  not  extend  to  all  those,  often  of  different  caste  and 
race,  who  are  affected  by  our  conduct  in  the  wide  circle 
of  business  and  political  relationships.  The  political  boss 
who  corrupts  the  institutions  upon  which  our  welfare 
depends  or  the  titanic  malefactor  in  business  may  possess 
instinctive  kindness  that  binds  in  friendship  to  him  his 
partners  in  spoliation,  but  because  of  lack  of  social  edu- 
cation he  is  without  the  rational  altruism  which  is  ade- 
quate to  humanize  our  big  impersonal  relationships.  It 
is  true,  as  we  have  pointed  out,  that  the  original  boundary 
of  instinctive  altruism  is  the  circle  of  the  horde,  beyond 
which  fear  and  hostility  reign.  It  is  reason  that  expands 
the  circle  of  fellowship  within  which  altruistic  propulsions 
stir  till  it  includes  all  those  who  experience  the  values 
common  to  mankind  and  of  whom  reason  affirms  "their 
experiences,  too,  are  real  and  must  be  counted  and 
weighed  among  the  pertinent  realities  that  determine 
practical  judgments." 

The  assertion  that  there  is  no  sanction  in  reason  for 
doing  good  to  another  at  cost  to  the  doer,  and  that  altru- 
ism depends  upon  a  nonrational  supernatural  sanction  is 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    281 

an  abysmal  absurdity.  If  my  action  affects  the  welfare 
of  another  as  well  as  my  own,  then  to  act  in  disregard  of 
his  welfare  is  to  choose  my  course  in  disregard  of  a  part 
of  the  consequences,  to  "reason'*  while  deliberately  ignor- 
ing part  of  the  pertinent  facts,  which  contradicts  the  very 
definition  of  reason,  and  to  be  governed  not  by  reference 
to  the  facts  in  the  case  but  by  emotional  partiality  and 
to  be  prompted  not  by  reason  but  by  some  other  passion 
or  propensity.  It  is  to  claim  that  good  is  good  only  when 
realized  by  myself,  and  that  the  only  suffering  is  my  suf- 
fering, for  if  the  good  and  the  suffering  of  others  are 
real  they  cannot  be  ignored  in  a  rational  balancing  of  the 
consequences  of  conduct. 

The  major  premise  of  justice  is  the  equal  reality  of 
good  and  of  harm,  in  one  person  or  in  another,  not  the 
equal  extent  but  the  equal  reality  as  far  as  it  extends. 
Justice  is  built  by  reason  upon  this  premise.  And  he  is 
not  just  or  reasonable  who  affirms  the  equal  reality  of 
good  and  harm  between  his  two  neighbors,  but  not  be- 
tween himself  and  one  of  them.  If,  when  judging 
between  my  two  neighbors,  A  and  B,  I  must  perceive  that 
good  and  harm  are  equally  real  in  the  experience  of  both, 
then  the  fact  of  that  equality  does  not  evaporate  and 
become  nonexistent  when  A  is  judging  between  himself 
and  B.  He  alone  is  just  who  can  enforce  justice  between 
himself  and  his  neighbor. 

It  is  false  to  teach  that  sacrifice  is  never  reasonable. 
In  fact,  sacrifice  is  never  duty  unless  it  is  reasonable,  that 
is,  unless  a  sufficiently  farseeing  and  impartial  balancing 
of  values  would  show  that  from  the  sacrifice  a  net  gain 
in  experience-values  can  be  anticipated.  To  say  that  sac- 
rifice is  not  reasonable  from  the  point  of  view  of  the  actor 


282  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

is  the  same  as  saying  that  the  actor  is  expected  always  to 
take  a  partial,  a  one-sided,  an  unreasonable  view,  swayed 
by  his  own  private  interest  and  denying  the  equal  reality 
of  the  interests  of  others.  Impulsive  instinctive  and  un- 
reasoned goodness,  precious  as  it  is,  will  not  suffice  to 
save  the  world. 

It  seems  false  to  experience  to  teach,  as  now  is  com- 
monly done,  that  what  seems  most  like  reasoned  sacrifice 
is  subtle  selfishness,  because  altruism  is  itself  pleasur- 
able. It  was  pointed  out  in  the  foregoing  chapter  that 
instinctive  altruism  is  no  more  dependent  upon  desire 
for  any  pleasure  it  contains  than  anger  or  fear.  How- 
ever, the  conflict  between  the  private  interest  of  the 
good  man  and  the  demands  of  righteousness  upon  him 
is  mitigated  by  two  considerations:  First,  in  proportion 
as  society  becomes  wise  enough  to  identify  its  benefac- 
tors and  its  malefactors,  it  makes  the  way  of  trans- 
gressors hard,  and  rewards  the  well-doer  with  approval, 
esteem,  promotion,  and  advantage.  It  is  true  that  so- 
ciety does  not  yet  dispense  its  penalties  and  its  favors 
with  wisdom  and  justice,  but  it  has  made  progress  in 
that  direction  and  will  make  more.  Second,  in  making 
sacrifice  the  good  man  does  only  what  he  knows  any 
man  in  his  place  is  reasonably  bound  to  do,  and  should 
he  refuse  he  would  violate  his  own  reason  and  murder 
his  own  personality.  Seeking  his  life,  he  would  lose 
it.  He  would  lose  his  self-respect,  would  cease  to 
be  the  man  that  he  could  countenance,  would  sacrifice  his 
own  peace  and  worth,  and  his  zest  in  the  pursuit  of  life's 
aim,  and  that  loyalty  to  values  wider  than  his  own  ex- 
perience which  is  the  heart  of  the  life  of  a  social  being. 
Every  true  man  knows  that  it  is  war  time,  that  war 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    283 

between  good  and  evil  is  always  on;  and  for  the  true 
man  in  war  time  sacrifice  is  a  condition  of  the  highest 
happiness.  He  is  happier  playing  his  part  in  the  strife 
of  good  and  evil,  just  as  the  loyal  Dodson  felt  that  it  was 
but  natural  for  him  to  ride  behind  to  toils  and  perils  when 
his  Montmorency  went  to  war,  and  though  he  went  for 
loyalty  and  not  for  happiness,  yet  he  was  far  happier  so 
than  he  would  have  been  skulking  at  home. 

Idealism  and  pride,  as  ethical  motives,  are  quite  as 
dependent  upon  reason  as  altruism.  The  purely  instinc- 
tive esthetic  reactions  are  vague  and  uncertain.  It  is 
largely  the  judgments  of  reason  that  by  discriminating 
between  forms  of  conduct  according  to  their  conse- 
quences, including  their  remoter  consequences  in  the 
future  and  to  others,  determines  what  acts  shall  excite 
disgust,  abhorrence,  and  detestation  and  what  shall  excite 
approval,  admiration,  and  enthusiasm.  And  pride,  as  we 
have  seen,  may  be  vain  and  invidious.  It  is  reason  that 
builds  an  ennobling  personal  ideal  and  makes  self-respect 
and  pride  a  propulsion  to  heroism  and  devotion.  Thus, 
it  is  the  light  of  reason  that  shows  the  path  to  truly  hu- 
man conduct,  that  not  only  widens  the  scope  and  defines 
the  manifestations  of  altruism  but  mitigates  hate  till  it 
becomes  zeal  against  wrong  and  the  obstacles  to  progress, 
makes  emulation  generous,  attaches  pride  to  ennobling 
ideals  and  cultivates  the  moral  esthetic  sense  till  it  equips 
men  with  detestations  and  with  enthusiasms. 

The  reasonable  man  perceives  that  the  social  situation 
in  which  the  greatest  total  of  good  human  experience  is 
realized  can  be  created  and  maintained  only  by  compli- 
ance with  the  conditions  which  are  set  by  nature,  by 
human  nature  and  by  the  existing  social  status.  His 


284  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

obvious  conclusion  is  that  to  will  the  greatest  good  is  to 
will  compliance  with  those  conditions.  It  is  irrational 
for  him  so  to  act  as  to  veto  the  greatest  good.  It  is  the 
surrender  of  mankind  and  treachery  to  human  hopes,  as 
well  as  murder  of  his  own  personality,  to  shirk  his  duty. 

Men  do  right  when  right  costs,  go  to  scaffolds  for  lib- 
erty, or  to  the  cross  for  a  kingdom  ruled  by  love,  partly 
by  instinctive  altruism,  partly  by  personal  idealism,  but 
mostly  by  reason  which  transforms  idealism  and  widens 
altruism  into  the  sharing  of  universal  hopes,  makes  each 
an  incarnation  of  the  character  and  purposes  of  God,  if 
God  has  purposes  for  the  people  of  the  earth,  and  makes 
each  one  of  us,  not  a  clansman  shut  in  by  narrow  loyal- 
ties ringed  round  by  hate,  a  son  of  Anac  or  even  a  child 
of  Abraham,  but  instead  a  son  of  Man. 

From  the  biological  point  of  view,  only  the  propensi- 
ties have  power  to  determine  conduct.  But,  since  the 
propensities  function  under  the  stimulation  of  ideas,  from 
the  psychological  point  of  view,  only  ideas  are  motives 
to  any  conduct  that  widely  distinguishes  men  from  brutes. 
From  the  biological  point  of  view,  a  propensity  can  de- 
termine nothing  but  its  own  functioning,  and  hence  from 
that  point  of  view  it  may  seem  that  the  idea-seeking  pro- 
pensity can  motivate  no  conduct  but  the  search  for  ideas, 
the  look-listen-think  function.  But  since  the  ideas  which 
it  provides  stimulate  all  the  other  propensities,  there  is 
another  sense  in  which  the  idea-getting  propensity 
motivates  all  distinctly  human  conduct,  and  the  character 
of  the  conduct  is  determined  by  the  adequacy  with  which 
the  idea-getting  propensity  functions.  Honest  thinking 
is,  therefore,  the  supreme  virtue  and  the  mother  of  vir- 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    285 

tues  of  every  kind.  Honest  evaluation  of  conflicting 
interests  carried  over  into  conduct  is  justice. 

We  have  been  speaking  of  the  idea-getting  propensity, 
by  abstraction,  as  a  thing  existing  and  functioning  by 
itself.  However,  it  does  not  exist  nor  function  by  itself, 
but  in  connection  with  all  our  other  propensities.  In  this 
is  its  weakness  and  its  strength.  This  connection  is  its 
weakness,  because  the  other  propensities  influencing  and 
often  even  inhibiting  reason  may  make  it  blink  the  facts 
that  are  remote  from  our  other  impulses  or  hostile  to 
them,  facts  that  relate  to  the  future  or  to  the  experience 
of  others.  And  this  connection  with  other  propensities  is 
the  strength  of  reason,  because  it  turns  the  conclusions 
of  reason  into  practical  judgments.  Of  all  matters  of 
fact  the  one  of  chief  concern  is  the  relation  of  all  other 
facts  to  human  weal  or  woe.  Most  spontaneously  our 
intelligence  first  questions  the  relation  of  all  facts  to  our 
private  happiness,  but  it  cannot  be  blind  to  their  relation 
to  any  human  experience  that  conies  within  the  compass 
of  our  mental  vision. 

We  have  now  seen  that  reason  (aside  from  the  in- 
herent satisfaction  of  its  own  functioning  as  one  of  the 
essential  values  of  human  experience,  the  satisfaction  of 
being  mentally  interested,  of  knowing  and  understand- 
ing) reveals  occasions  which  call  into  play  all  of  the 
human  propensities  and  discovers  methods  by  which  all 
of  the  other  propensities  respond  to  occasions. 

There  are  still  two  other  ways  in  which  reason  may 
furnish  a  motive  to  right  conduct  that  have  not  been  ade- 
quately brought  out  by  our  discussion.  First,  we  acquire 
a  powerful  sentiment  for  rationality  as  such.  Even  if  it 
be  true  that  from  the  biological  point  of  view  a  propensity 


286  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

prompts  no  action  but  its  own  specific  functioning  and 
therefore  the  cognitive  propensity  directly  prompts  no 
activity  but  that  of  looking,  perceiving,  thinking,  yet 
to  act  rationally  becomes  a  part  of  the  personal  ideal. 
For  to  make  a  practical  judgment  and  not  to  follow  it 
opens  a  breach  in  our  own  being,  a  hiatus  in  our  normal 
processes,  a  violation  of  our  own  nature.  To  disobey  the 
verdict  of  reason  is  ugly,  repulsive,  an  affront  to  self- 
respect.  It  is  to  surrender  the  orderliness  of  human  life, 
and  to  despair  of  any  normality  in  the  life  of  human  kind. 
Kant's  great  rule,  So  act  that  you  could  will  that  all  men 
should  be  guided  by  the  same  maxim,  however  formulated 
or  even  though  not  formulated  at  all,  refers,  I  think,  to 
the  profoundest  of  all  the  motives  of  righteousness.  I 
mean  the  rational  perception  that  there  is  a  way  of  life 
obedience  to  which  secures  the  weal  of  human  kind  and 
abandonment  of  which  would  wreck  all  hopes.  Every 
highly  rational  man  says  to  himself :  I  for  one  must  so 
act  that  if  all  men  acted  likewise  the  good  of  humanity 
would  be  attained ;  not  to  do  so  is  to  be  a  traitor  to  human 
hopes.  This  is  the  "intelligible  imperative."  5 

Nor  is  this  all.  There  is  possibility  of  a  second  special 
relation  between  reason  and  conduct  in  addition  to  its 
power  to  show  occasions  for  the  activity  of  every  other 
propensity  and  methods  for  their  functioning.  Every 
practical  judgment  is  the  beginning  of  a  process  that  is 
normally  completed  by  execution  of  the  judgment.  If 
there  is  any  truth  in  the  doctrine  of  ideomotor  action,  that 
the  thought  of  an  act  unless  inhibited  is  the  beginning 
of  the  act,  then,  above  all,  the  thought  of  an  act  accom- 
panied by  a  rational  approval  by  its  own  nature  may  be  the 
*Cf.  page  211. 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    287 

beginning  of  an  act.  Some  hold  that  the  tendency  to  act 
upon  a  practical  judgment  is  as  truly,  though  it  may  not 
be  as  strongly,  established  in  human  nature  as  any  pro- 
pensity. From  the  biological  point  of  view  it  may  seem 
at  first  sight  that  for  theoretical  neatness  the  cognitive 
propensity  should  impel  men  only  in  the  direction  of  its 
own  single  function — to  know  the  facts.  Yet,  on  a  fur- 
ther look,  it  appears  not  incredible  even  from  the  biological 
point  of  view,  that  the  tendency  for  the  conclusions  of 
reason  to  go  over  into  action  should  exist,  that  there 
should  be  an  open  sluice  for  natural  energy  to  run  from 
the  rational  conclusion  into  action.  If  such  a  sluiceway 
exists  it  may  be  deepened  by  the  acquired  sentiment  for 
rationality  and  the  habit  of  obedience  to  the  rational  im- 
perative. While  some  hold  that  there  exists  an  in- 
herent tendency  for  practical  judgments  to  go  over  into 
action  by  their  own  momentum,  it  is  not  necessary  to 
prove  that  such  a  tendency  exists  in  untutored  human 
nature  in  order  to  see  that  reason  is  in  all  the  other  ways 
we  have  mentioned  the  chief  promoter  of  ethical  progress. 
For  to  disclose  the  facts,  including  the  remoter  conse- 
quences of  our  conduct,  consequences  to  be  anticipated  in 
the  future  and  in  the  experience  of  others,  and  so  to  sup- 
ply motives  to  every  other  propensity,  is  a  sufficient  func- 
tion for  the  cognitive  faculty.  The  typical  function  of 
reason  by  virtue  of  which  it  has  been  selected  in  the  proc- 
ess of  evolution  is  the  practical  judgment.  And  the  nat- 
ural function  of  the  practical  judgment  is  to  issue  in 
conduct  whether  by  its  own  momentum  or  by  awakening 
the  other  instincts  and  habits.  In  practical  life  we  regard 
the  proof  of  such  a  judgment  as  persuasion  to  action. 
To  summarize:  (i)  The  very  fact  of  a  practical 


288  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

judgment  appears  to  many  to  constitute  an  initiation  of 
conduct — unless  there  is  some  other  inhibiting  cause.  (2) 
We  acquire  a  sentiment  for  rationality  which  reenforces 
every  rational  propulsion.  (3)  The  primary  function  and 
raison  d'etre  of  reason  is  to  disclose  the  occasions  and  sup- 
ply the  guidance  for  every  other  propensity  including  al- 
truism, idealism  and  self-respect.  Thus  it  is  that  reason, 
which  alone  enables  social  control  to  define  its  require- 
ments or  to  devise  the  methods  of  their  enforcement  so 
as  to  create  a  situation  in  which  it  will  be  recognized  as 
disadvantageous,  if  not  imbecile,  to  be  bad,  and  in  which 
success  will  be  defined  in  terms  of  social  service,  also 
becomes  tHe  parent  of  that  individual  virtue  without  a 
large  measure  of  which  no  such  social  situation  can  be 
set  up. 

MAN'S  PRIME  NECESSITY  OR  THE  FUNCTIONAL 
IMPORTANCE  OF  THE  IDEA 

"Ideas  rule  the  world  or  throw  it  into  chaos."  So 
wrote  Auguste  Comte.  No  epigram  tells  the  whole  truth. 
The  life  of  society  is  molded  not  by  one  but  by  four  types 
of  causes:  first,  by  the  biological — or  psychophysical — 
traits  of  human  organisms;  second,  by  the  varied  geog- 
raphy of  the  earth;  third,  by  dugouts  and  wigwams, 
palaces  and  slums,  weapons  and  tools,  pictures  and 
libraries,  railroads  and  ships,  crowds  and  populations, 
and  all  the  rest  of  that  artificial  material  environment  by 
which  men  surround  themselves ;  and  fourth,  it  is  molded 
by  the  causal  interplay  of  the  social  activities  themselves, 
ideas,  sentiments,  and  practices  which  furnish  to  each 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    289 

individual  and  to  each  social  movement  the  most  effective 
of  all  the  determining  conditions.6 

Yet  ideas,  although  they  be  but  one  factor,  are  so  char- 
acteristic and  so  predominant  a  factor  in  human  life  that 
it  remains  one  of  the  truest  of  epigrams  that  "ideas  rule 
the  world  or  throw  it  into  chaos."  Of  the  four  factors 
that  mold  social  life,  the  first,  the  psychological  organ- 
ism of  man — as  distinguished  from  the  organism  of  a 
dumb  brute,  is  a  capacity  for  forming  ideas,  for  respond- 
ing to  them  with  emotions  and  sentiments,  and  for  ex- 
pressing them  in  speech  and  action.  The  second  and  third 
factors  in  the  molding  of  social  life,  the  natural  and  the 
artificial  physical  environment,  are  to  man  not  merely 
food  and  warmth  but  the  sources  of  ideas,  the  mediums 
for  expressing  ideas,  and  the  stuff  that  ideas  utilize  in 
action.  And,  the  fourth  factor,  man's  social  environ- 
ment, social  activity,  is  composed  of  the  ideas  and  senti- 
ments of  associates  and  the  practices  in  which  these  ideas 
and  sentiments  are  expressed.  It  is  because  his  ideas 
are  different  from  those  of  the  dumb  brutes  that  man 
himself  is  not  a  dumb  brute. 

•  The  third  and  fourth  of  these  classes  of  conditioning  phenomena 
are  closely  related ;  they  are  two  parts  of  the  social  whole.  Analysis 
would  be  incomplete,  however,  if  it  slurred  over  the  distinction  be- 
tween them  for  they  give  rise  to  distinct  types  of  causation.  The 
artificial  physical  environment  affects  us  largely  in  the  same  way 
as  natural  geographic  facts,  while  the  fourth  type  of  conditioning 
is  that  investigated  by  social  psychology.  Moreover,  to  recognize 
the  distinction  between  them  brings  out  the  most  difficult  and  most 
important  of  all  sociological  truths,  namely  the  psychic  character 
of  all  customs  and  institutions,  that  the  essential  social  facts  live 
in  the  minds  and  hearts  of  men,  and  that  social  change  is  a  psychic 
process,  that  institutions  in  their  most  fundamental  aspect  are  states 
of  mind,  and  even  mechanical  inventions  are  of  such  a  character 
that  if  all  the  typewriters  were  taken  from  America  and  given  to 
untutored  savages  they  would  not  have  the  typewriter  and  we  still 
should  have  it  as  a  social  possession  ready  to  express  itself  in  steel. 


290  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

And  practically  all  of  those  ideas  which  differentiate 
the  life  of  man  from  that  of  a  dumb  brute  the  individual 
man  has  by  virtue  of  the  fact  that  he  belongs  to  a  society 
of  men.  Let  us  fully  recognize  the  power  and  worth  of 
individual  man,  now  that  man  has  a  life  molded  by 
socially  evolved  ideas,  but  let  us  also  recognize  that  ex- 
cept in  society  and  by  association  he  never  would  have 
developed  any  such  life  or  have  become  a  personality  to 
which  we  should  willingly  give  the  name  of  "man." 
Practically  all  that  he  possesses  that  is  human  and  not 
bestial  he  possesses  by  virtue  of  his  membership  in  a  unity 
of  which  he  is  but  an  element.  And  this  was  never  truer 
than  to-day  nor  of  any  son  of  man  than  of  the  latest 
born.  Neither  the  ideas  that  raise  man  above  the  brute 
nor  even  the  language  in  which  these  ideas  are  formu- 
lated and  expressed  can  be  had  save  by  association.  Lan- 
guage, itself,  is  not  inborn.  It  is  only  the  power  of 
acquiring  language  that  is  inborn,  and  those  born  deaf 
remain  dumb.  But  for  membership  in  society  no  one  of 
us  would  ever  "have  a  soul"  7  in  Helen  Keller's  meaning 
of  that  phrase.  The  concatenated  series  of  experiences 
which  we  call  "human"  life,  the  life  of  a  "soul,"  is  not  the 
property  in  fee  simple  of  the  individual.  He  holds  only  a 
right  of  entail  and  usufruct  in  so  much  of  the  common 
life  of  society  as  he  can  appropriate,  and  perhaps  enhance 
by  some  infinitesimal  accretion.  Or  if  he  be  one  of  the 
few  who  enrich  life  by  some  notable  addition,  he  could 
not  do  so  if  he  had  not  first  inherited  a  million  times  more 
from  those  who  have  preceded  him. 

Biological  organisms  born  of  ancestral  protoplasm  de- 
rived from  the  highest  of  the  primates,  as  mere  biological 

1 See  page  49. 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    291 

organisms,  are  not  human  personalities.  We  do  not  de- 
rive our  humanity  by  biological  inheritance  but  by  social 
inheritance.  Our  biological  organisms  are  only  the  com- 
plex mechanisms  capable  of  those  reactions  that  condition 
the  states  of  consciousness  which  we  call  human  life. 
Those  reactions  would  never  be  evoked  save  in  a  society 
which  has  been  produced,  not  by  biological  evolution, 
but  by  social  evolution.  The  finest  biological  organism 
belonging  to  the  highest  genus  of  the  primates,  if  it  de- 
veloped from  birth  without  society,  would  be  as  incapable 
of  producing  a  suit  of  woven  fabric  as  of  producing  a 
language.  The  arts  involved  in  the  production  of  a  suit 
of  clothes  run  back  across  the  ages.  He  would  be  as 
incapable  of  producing  a  conscience  code  or  a  system  of 
political  institutions  as  of  rearing  the  pyramids  of  Egypt 
single-handed  and  without  tools.  Unless  he  were  a  mem- 
ber of  society  that  finest  biological  specimen  of  the  genus 
homo  would  remain  a  dumb  brute,  as  naked  in  mind  as 
in  body. 

Nevertheless,  the  individual  for  his  brief  threescore 
years  and  ten  is  supreme.  Society  has  no  life  apart  from 
the  lives  of  individuals.  The  total  accumulated  wealth  of 
humanity's  life,  at  any  given  moment,  is  not  only  pos- 
sessed by  individuals,  it  exists  as  the  life  of  Individuals. 
For  the  time  being,  these  individuals  constitute  humanity. 
The  life  they  live  is  as  old  as  the  race;  their  language, 
their  creeds,  their  arts,  their  institutions  are  ancient.  And 
they  are  still  young,  for  the  present  generation,  supreme 
for  a  day  and  enriched  with  all  the  accumulations  of  the 
past,  is  the  first  hour  of  a  future  that  may  be  far  longer 
than  that  which  has  crept  by  since  the  first  man  stood 


292  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

erect.  Human  life  is  at  one  and  the  same  time  individual 
and  social. 

For  a  time  biological  and  social  evolution  went  on 
pari  passu.  Those  physiological  traits  of  the  organism 
were  selected  for  survival  which  enabled  it  to  utilize  the 
resources  that  resulted  from  association.  The  distin- 
guishing characteristics  of  organisms  belonging  to  the 
genus  homo  which  enable  them  gradually  to  amass  that 
system  of  interstimulated  activity  which  raises  them  so 
far  above  the  dumb  brutes  is  this:  They  are  organisms 
preeminently  adapted  to  function  under  the  stimulation 
of  ideas.  As  the  locomotive  engine  runs  by  steam,  man 
runs  by  ideas.  Give  me  the  idea  that  there  is  a  cobra 
under  my  bed,  or  a  fire  started  in  my  attic  or  a  friend 
ringing  at  my  door,  and  the  idea  sets  me  in  motion.  It 
makes  no  difference  whatever  whether  the  idea  is  true  6r 
false ;  so  long  as  I  believe  it,  it  impels  me. 

Man's  conduct  differs  from  that  of  animals  partly  be- 
cause in  so  great  a  proportion  of  cases  it  is  aroused  not 
by  simple  perception  of  natural  objects  but  by  perception 
of  artificial  objects,  that  is,  objects  that  embody  the  ideas 
of  his  human  associates  and  predecessors.  Above  all,  his 
conduct  differs  from  that  of  animals  because  it  is  so  often 
aroused  not  by  any  mere  percept  but  by  more  elaborated 
ideas,  and  because  his  instincts  express  themselves  not 
in  acts  that  are  the  hard  and  fast  prescriptions  of  some 
inherited  neuromuscular  coordination  but  in  ways  that  he 
has  learned  so  that  both  the  stimulus  and  the  manifesta- 
tion of  instinct  are  what  they  are  by  virtue  of  ideas  that 
are  not  inborn  but  socially  acquired. 

For  civilized  man  even  so  primitive  a  function  as  eating 
is  thus  transformed.  Instead  of  devouring  raw,  when- 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    293 

ever  and  wherever  he  finds  it,  beast,  bird,  insect,  fruit,  or 
root,  as  a  bear  does  and  as  some  savages  still  do,  he  eats 
at  regular  intervals,  seated  in  a  chair,  at  a  table,  spread 
with  linen,  lifts  his  food  with  implements  of  silver  from 
receptacles  of  glass  and  china,  and  partakes  of  viands 
elaborately  prepared  by  the  aid  of  fire,  by  the  subtle  com- 
bination of  many  ingredients  and  by  the  use  of  many 
mechanical  devices.  When  he  fights  he  shakes  the  earth 
with  thunders,  turns  the  atmosphere  to  poison;  prowling 
beneath  the  sea,  he  launches  missals  to  which  the  trident 
of  Neptune  was  a  toy ;  and  he  rains  the  bolts  of  Jove  from 
heaven.  His  fighting  is  still  instinctive  but  no  longer 
with  naked  hands  and  gnashing  teeth  alone,  but  with  an 
endless  panoply  that  embodies  his  socially  evolved  and 
disseminated  ideas.  And  what  is  it  that  he  is  fighting 
for?  It  may  be  for  trade  routes  on  the  other  side  of  the 
globe,  or  it  may  be  to  defend  a  form  of  political  organiza- 
tion which  he  regards  as  the  means  of  welfare  for  him- 
self, for  his  posterity,  and  for  the  world. 

The  tendency  of  natural  causation  is  to  produce  in 
every  species  of  plant  or  animal  certain  characteristic 
organs  of  adaptation.  Each  organic  type — so  to  say — 
specializes  on  a  particular  mode  of  adaptation.  The 
oyster  in  his  shell,  the  squid  with  his  ink,  the  fish  with  its 
air  bladder  and  fins,  the  bee  with  her  sting  and  her  in- 
stincts for  cooperation,  the  eagle  with  his  talons  and 
telescopic  eyes,  has  each  a  particular  type  of  organic  and 
functional  adaptation.  So  also  has  man.  He  is  especially 
adapted  to  form  ideas  that  outrun  mere  perception  and 
to  establish  correlation  between  his  actions  and  his  en- 
vironment by  acting  under  the  prompting  of  ideas.  Even 
for  mere  biological  survival  man's  prime  need  is  for 


294  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

ideas.  Without  them  he  would  be  not  only  a  mere  beast 
but  a  feeble  beast  unadapted  to  survive,  instead  of  a 
world-ranging,  world-dominating  being. 

Man's  appetite  for  ideas  and  propensity  to  formulate 
them  is  the  distinctive  form  of  biological  adaptation  which 
equips  him  for  survival.  The  highest  of  the  subhuman 
species  depend  in  part  upon  ideas  for  survival,  and  since 
they  must  have  some  ideas  in  order  to  survive  they  are 
provided  with  a  natural  hunger  for  them.  Curiosity  is 
a  truly  instinctive  prompting  in  many  of  the  creatures 
below  man,  but  in  man,  whose  dependence  upon  ideas  has 
become  extreme,  that  hunger  is  more  highly  developed. 
He  hungers  not  merely  for  new  sense  percepts  but  for 
explanations.  He  is  a  thinker,  dreamer,  reasoner.  Be- 
cause the  many  think  so  much  less  than  the  gifted  few, 
and  so  much  less  than  would  be  desirable,  we  are  tempted 
to  deny  that  the  mass  possess  this  trait.  If  they  did  not 
they  would  be  apes  and  not  men.  A  sufficient  evidence 
that  they  do  possess  it  is  the  newspaper  eagerly  waited 
for  by  the  young  and  by  the  middle-aged  and  by  the  old 
men  in  the  chimney  corners,  who  not  only  pore  over  the 
news  on  the  first  page,  but  even  welcome  the  puzzles  on 
the  back  page  that  have  no  practical  content,  but  only 
afford  an  empty  exercise  to  the  eager  propensity  of  the 
mind.  This  idea-hunger  and  the  functioning  by  which  it 
is  gratified,  constitute  as  true  an  inborn  predisposition  as 
any  instinct.  For  convenience  and  because  of  its  preemi- 
nent development  in  man  it  may  be  called  the  specifically 
human  instinct,8  as  characteristic  of  man  as  the  shell  is  of 
the  turtle,  or  as  the  amazing  instincts  of  organized 

"It  is  left  to  the  intelligence  of  the  reader  to  interpret  the  loose 
meaning  in  which  the  word  "instinct"  is  here  employed. 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON     295 

cooperation  are  of  the  ant  and  the  bee.  It  is  a  part  of  the 
description  of  nearly  9  every  instinct  that  its  functioning 
carries  a  peculiar  satisfaction,  distinctive  of  that  instinct, 
and  that  it  also  serves  a  definite  biological  purpose.  The 
gratification  is  not  the  biological  purpose  or  raison  d'etre 
of  the  instinct.  The  gratification  is  only  a  means  of 
securing  the  performance  of  the  function.  The  animal 
eats  to  satisfy  its  appetite  and  does  not  know  that  the 
biological  purpose  of  its  action  is  to  nourish  the  tissues 
and  maintain  the  vital  heat.  It  mates  with  no  foresight 
of  offspring.  So  far  as  the  instinctive  consciousness  of 
the  animal  is  concerned,  the  gratification  is  the  main 
thing.  So  far  as  natural  or  biological  causation  is  con- 
cerned, the  gratification  is  nothing  but  a  bait  to  promote 
the  performance  of  the  instinctive  function.  No  instinct 
would  have  evolved  that  did  not  perform  a  function 
essential  to  the  survival  of  the  species.  So  far  as  mere 
survival,  the  purpose  10  of  nature  is  concerned,  it  would 
do  just  as  well  if  the  functions  of  an  animal  were  as 
destitute  of  accompanying  gratification  as  those  of  a  tree 
are  supposed  to  be,  provided  the  animal  would  perform 
the  functions. 

Here  life  divides  into  two  distinct  and  interdependent 
sets  of  manifestations,  the  succession  of  conscious  experi- 
ences and  the  succession  of  biological  functions.  For  the 
biologist  and  physical  nature,  the  latter  are  the  important 
realities  and  the  former  are  significant  only  as  baits  or 
guides  to  secure  their  performance.  But  for  the  psy- 
chologist, the  sociologist,  and  for  the  practical  reason  of 

"Compare  pages  235,  236,  also  151. 

10  It  is  hardly  necessary  to  say  that  the  word  "purpose"  is  here 
used  in  a  figurative  sense. 


296  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

every  conscious  and  reasoning  being,  the  former,  that  is, 
the  succession  of  conscious  experiences,  is  the  only  ulti- 
mately important  matter  and  the  physical  functioning  is 
valued  only  as  the  necessary  condition  of  those  expe- 
riences. Life,  for  the  biologist,  is  functioning.  Life, 
for  the  living  man,  is  the  experiences  of  activity.  The 
former  life  is  a  product  of  biological  evolution;  the  latter 
life  by  social  evolution  acquires  a  richness  and  content 
which  physical  evolution  could  not  produce.  The  social 
evolution  introduces  no  new  instincts  and  no  new  kinds 
of  satisfaction.  But  through  the  acquisition  of  new 
ideas  it  diversifies  and  enriches  even  the  satisfaction  of 
eating,  and  develops  the  more  distinctively  human  satis- 
factions from  germs  to  their  flower  and  fruit. 

This  efflorescence  of  satisfactions  is  made  possible  only 
by  the  supplementing  of  instincts  by  ideas.  But  the  most 
characteristic  service  of  ideas  is  not  thus  to  diversify  and 
enrich  the  activities  and  so  the  satisfactions  known  to 
man,  but  to  show  the  path  to  those  satisfactions  whether 
in  their  cruder  and  undeveloped  state  or  in  their  higher 
stages  of  development.  Paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  as 
soon  as  satisfaction,  and  not  mere  functioning  and  sur- 
vival, becomes  the  predominant  purpose  of  life,  the  satis- 
faction contained  in  the  present  act  ceases  to  be  an 
adequate  guide.  Instinct,  as  we  have  seen,  was  not 
developed  for  the  sake  of  gratification,  but  for  the  sake 
of  function,  and  when  gratification  becomes  the  aim  in- 
stinct requires  the  guidance  of  ideas.  To  obey  each 
present  instinctive  prompting  precludes  that  planned  con- 
duct guided  by  foresight  which  is  essential  to  personal 
development  and  personal  satisfaction,  and  which  is 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    297 

equally  essential  to  the  development  and  maintenance  of 
an  extensive  and  efficient  social  organization. 

The  stimulation  of  instinct  takes  place  on  three  levels, 
according  as  the  stimulus  is  ( i )  perceived  in  the  present, 
(2)  remembered  from  the  past,  (3)  anticipated  in  the 
future.  On  the  lowest  level  the  stimulus  is  a  mere  per- 
cept. For  example,  the  monarch  butterfly  is  stimulated 
to  deposit  her  eggs  in  the  milkweed  by  a  mere  perception 
of  that  plant  without  any  help  from  previous  experience 
or  anticipated  consequences.  Similarly,  the  smell  of  food, 
or  the  sight  of  a  mate,  arouses  the  instinctive  response. 
On  the  second  level  an  idea  presented  by  memory  arouses 
instinctive  response  either  in  the  absence  of  any  present 
percept  or  by  adding  a  remembered  idea  to  that  presented 
by  present  perception  so  as  to  produce  the  instinctive  re- 
sponse. Thus,  the  puppy  that  yesterday  was  whipped  for 
taking  forbidden  food  may  shun  it  to-day,  or,  if  yester- 
day he  was  rewarded  for  jumping  through  a  hoop,  to-day 
he  may  promptly  make  the  leap  in  gleeful  anticipation  of 
approval  and  reward.  Even  the  chickens  refuse  the  cin- 
nabar caterpillar  after  one  experience  with  it,  or  Mr. 
Morgan's  tame  moor  hen  comes  running  when  he  takes 
the  spade  with  which  he  had  dug  her  worms.  Sight  of 
the  spade  plus  memory  of  yesterday's  feast  have  the  same 
effect  as  would  the  sight  of  worms.  On  the  third  and 
highest  level  the  idea  which  arouses  instinctive  response 
is  a  calculated  anticipation  of  what  cannot  be  remembered 
because  it  has  never  been  perceived.  As  on  the  second 
level,  the  remembered  ideas  may  combine  with  present 
percepts  to  elicit  instinctive  response,  so  also  on  the  high- 
est level  the  ideas  of  calculated  foresight  may  combine 


298  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

with  memories  of  the  past  and  with  present  percepts  to 
make  up  the  state  of  mind  that  elicits  instinctive  response. 
Memory  and  reason  unite  to  secure  foresight.  Only  by 
the  addition  of  reason  does  the  calculated  foresight 
described  become  possible.  Reason  identifies  in  advance 
occasions  for  action  and  conditions  that  would  secure  a 
desirable  or  undesirable  result.  The  propensity  to  rea- 
son would  never  have  been  evolved  if  it  had  not  a  func- 
tion. The  biological  function  of  reason  is  to  discover 
the  path  of  success  for  all  the  other  instincts,  to  dis- 
cover obscure  and  remote  occasions  and  roundabout 
methods  for  instinctive  action.  The  pleasure  peculiar  to 
reason — or  the  cognitive  instinct — is  the  gratification  of 
curiosity,  the  satisfaction  of  being  mentally  interested, 
the  experience  of  seeing,  hearing,  guessing,  corroborating, 
solving,  explaining,  and  it  accounts  for  the  newspaper  and 
travel  for  pleasure.  It  is  the  primary  motive  of 
science  and  exploration.  Without  the  opportunity  for 
this  gratification  mankind  would  be  desperately  impov- 
erished and  would  be  hideously  bored  by  existence.  But 
the  gratification  of  an  instinct  we  have  learned  to  dis- 
tinguish from  its  function.  And  the  function  of  this, 
the  characteristic  propensity  of  man,  is  to  furnish  the 
ideas  that  determine  which  of  all  man's  instincts  shall 
function  in  a  given  juncture,  and  how  it  shall  function. 

LIFE  A  PROBLEM  IN  PROPORTION 

When  we  rise  above  the  level  of  unrationalized  instinc- 
tive promptings  to  the  level  of  truly  human  existence,  life 
becomes  a  problem  in  proportion,  first,  between  the  vari- 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    299 

ous  kinds  of  satisfactions;  second,  between  the  present 
and  the  future;  third,  between  the  individual  and  the 
group. 

First  we  must  work  out  a  proportion  between  the 
various  satisfactions.  The  instincts  often  conflict  and 
compete  with  each  other.  The  angry  man  may  fear  to 
strike.  The  frightened  man  may  be  ashamed  to  run 
away.  The  hungry  man  may  be  too  bashful  to  eat  or 
too  stingy  to  buy,  and  a  boy  may  resist  the  temptations 
of  peanuts  and  pink  lemonade  in  order  to  gratify  his 
curiosity  as  to  what  is  in  the  side  shows.  Not  only  are 
there  five  different  kinds  of  instinctive  satisfactions, 
physical,  esthetic,  intellectual,  social,  and  personal,  but 
each  of  the  five  includes  many  variants,  and  there  are 
innumerable  objects  by  which  they  may  be  called  into 
exercise.  It  may  seem  for  a  moment  that  "personal" 
satisfaction  is  an  exception  to  this  statement  on  the 
ground  that  it  can  be  derived  from  but  one  object,  the 
self.  But  there  are  many  potential  selves  between  which 
we  may  choose,  and  numberless  specific  excellences  or 
particular  feats  from  which  we  may  derive  personal  sat- 
isfaction. The  good  of  life,  as  we  have  clearly  seen,  is 
the  realization  of  satisfactions  of  every  kind,  none  ex- 
cluded, and  none  in  such  excess  or  so  misplaced  as  to 
prevent  the  realization  of  the  others,  but  all  in  a  har- 
monious and  proportioned  totality  of  rich  and  varied 
experience. 

Second,  every  rational  life  involves  also  the  solution 
of  a  perpetual  problem  of  proportion  between  the  present 
and  the  future.  A  good  present  must  have  been  prepared 
for  by  a  rational  past.  This  means  that  we  are  obliged  to 


300  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

live  in  well-nigh  continuous  preparation  for  the  future. 
Yet  all  realization  must  be  found  in  the  moving  present. 
The  present  must  be  the  servant  of  the  future;  yet  the 
present  alone  is  the  master  of  life.  In  the  present  alone 
are  ends  attained.  Too  much  subordination  of  the  pres- 
ent to  the  future  would  sacrifice  all  ends  to  means.  Too 
much  sacrificing  of  the  future  to  the  present  would  pre- 
vent realization  of  ends  in  the  future  when  it  shall  have 
become  the  present.  We  rise  from  savagery  to  civiliza- 
tion and  from  animals  to  men  only  by  solving  the  problem 
of  proportion  between  the  present  and  the  future. 

Finally,  each  must  work  out  a  problem  of  proportion 
between  his  own  individual  life  and  the  life  of  society  of 
which  he  is  a  part.  Self-realization  is  possible  only  in  a 
society  of  individuals  who  cooperate  to  secure  the  general 
good.  Reasoned  altruism  and  personal  idealism,  as  well 
as  the  favor  and  disfavor,  rewards  and  punishments,  of 
reasonable  society  demand  it.  The  very  formation  of 
a  personal  ideal  includes  some  tentative  solution  of  all 
three  of  these  problems  in  proportion,  the  third  no  less 
than  the  other  two.  No  rational  self-judgment  can 
escape  it.  The  social  instincts  are  aroused  only  by  the 
"consciousness  of  kind/'  the  perception  of  some  degree 
of  likeness — of  we-ness,  of  one-ness — by  mental  appre- 
hension of  the  experience  of  others  as  being  like  our  own. 
This  recognition  takes  place  at  first  only  when  the 
resemblance  of  others  and  the  experiences  of  others  to 
ourselves  and  our  own  experiences  are  exhibited  in  clear 
resemblances  of  appearance  and  expression.  The  inner 
resemblance  of  experience  may  be  obscured  by  an  outer 
difference  in  the  color  of  the  skin,  or  in  dress  and  man- 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    301 

ners,  so  that  races  and  social  classes  fail  to  be  moved 
by  their  common  humanity.  And  mere  absence  from 
view  may  prevent  the  awakening  of  the  social  instincts 
until  imagination  has  been  vigorously  aroused. 

Thus,  the  promoter  of  bogus  mining  projects  who  robs 
school  mistresses  of  the  painfully  accumulated  provision 
for  their  old  age,  and  the  corrupt  politician  whose  admin- 
istration raises  the  death  rate  of  a  city  and  annually 
causes  the  death  of  thousands  of  old  and  young  may  be 
"kind  to  their  own  families"  and  "good-hearted"  in  their 
dealings  with  friends  and  neighbors.  It  is  reason  that 
not  only  discloses  the  causal  relation  between  our  present 
acts  and  our  future  experiences  but  also  demonstrates 
to  us  the  relation  between  our  acts  and  the  suffering  or 
joy  of  others  besides  ourselves.  It  does  more,  it  con- 
vinces us  of  the  similarity  between  their  experiences  and 
our  own,  so  that  we  must  admit  the  reality  of  joy  and 
sorrow  in  people  whose  skins  are  not  of  the  same  shade 
as  our  own  and  whose  manners  and  tailoring  do  not  con- 
form to  our  standards,  and  even  in  those  whom  we  have 
never  seen.  Once  let  this  resemblance  be  clearly  appre- 
hended and  altruism  and  other  social  instincts  begin  to 
function.  It  is  thus  that  reason  extends  the  brotherhood 
of  man  beyond  the  family  and  the  horde  to  the  nation  of 
millions  and  ultimately  to  mankind. 

The  extension  of  the  field  from  which  instinct  derives 
its  stimulations  so  as  to  include  our  own  future  gives  us 
prudence.  Its  extension,  so  as  to  include  all  those  who 
are  affected  by  our  acts,  gives  us  social  morality.  With- 
out ideas  supplied  by  reason  there  is  neither  prudence  nor 
social  righteousness. 


302  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

RESUM£ 

Rectitude  is  the  pursuit  of  happiness.  But  it  is  not 
pursuit  of  present  happiness  alone  nor  of  individual 
happiness  alone,  nor  its  pursuit  by  direct  means  alone. 
The  purpose  of  reasonable  endeavor  is  to  secure  the 
greatest  net  total  of  satisfying  human  experience. 

Reasonable  conduct  is  that  which  is  guided  by  regard 
for  all  the  pertinent  facts  so  far  as  they  can  be  descried. 
It  is  the  wholeness  of  the  view  and  the  proportion  in  the 
response  that  constitute  virtue.  No  instinct  is  bad  except 
when  it  is  followed  in  blindness  to  some  of  the  facts 
which  might  suspend  or  redirect  its  expression,  or  evoke 
another  instinct  to  compete  with  it.  It  is  the  complexity 
of  the  problem  of  proportion  and  the  lack  of  balance 
between  the  instincts  that  make  virtue  difficult  to  secure. 
Not  depravity  but  the  very  richness  and  variety  of  life's 
possibilities  render  it  easy  to  make  a  mess  of  it.  The 
very  strength  of  egoism  and  the  comparative  weakness  of 
altruism  are  not  necessarily  bad,  for  each  of  us  has  chief 
responsibility  for  his  own  welfare,  and  society  is  able  to 
turn  ambition,  pride,  and  even  desire  for  gain  into  ser- 
viceable channels.  The  whole  difficulty  is  in  securing 
a  properly  developed  social  situation,  and  the  socializa- 
tion of  individuals  through  reaction  with  such  a  situation. 
For  this  we  must  rely  upon  knowledge  of  the  actual  con- 
sequences of  conduct. 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  socialization  that  the  individ- 
ual must  in  every  case  discern  the  consequences  of  his 
act.  That  would  be  too  much  to  ask.  It  is  social  opinion, 
growing  up  under  the  leadership  of  the  intellectual  and 
moral  elite,  through  the  experience  of  generations  that 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    303 

forms  the  general  rules  of  conduct  and  builds  the  system 
of  cooperation  by  which  the  individual  is  guided.  It 
becomes  intrenched  in  the  sentiments  of  the  individual 
who  has  been  reared  by  society,  and  becomes  as  automatic 
as  language,  though,  like  language,  it  is  subject  to  pro- 
gressive change.  And  though  the  individual  would  never 
have  originated  those  judgments  or  devised  that  system 
of  cooperation,  he  is  able  to  understand  them  and  to 
approve  them  by  his  own  judgment.  The  soul  of  man 
is  the  whole  bundle  of  his  propensities  and  powers  en- 
riched by  the  sentiments  and  judgments  with  which  he 
has  been  equipped  by  the  process  jof  social  evolution  and 
individual  socialization.  Acquired  ideas  and  sentiments, 
and  the  developed  tendencies  to  express  them  in  action, 
are  the  most  distinctly  human  part  of  human  nature. 
Sentiments  originate  in  ideas  and  judgments.  Distinc- 
tively human  conduct  is  the  expression  of  tendencies 
humanized  by  response  to  social  tradition  and  evoked  by 
ideas  that  present  the  existing  condition.  Moreover,  the 
existing  situation  is  a  social  situation,  and  a  rational 
apprehension  of  it  includes  facts  which  relate  not  merely 
to  the  moment  and  the  individual  but  to  the  future  and 
the  group.  Yet  every  trait  of  second  nature  is  the  de- 
velopment of  an  inborn  capacity.  Every  voluntary  act 
is  in  this  sense  instinctive.  Only  it  is  instinct  awakened 
and  guided  by  judgment  and  modified  by  such  responses 
into  something  more  complex  than  heredity  made  it. 
Truly  human  conduct  is  the  explosion  that  results  when 
ideas  touch  off  propensities  which  themselves  have  been 
modified  by  previous  practice  in  reacting  to  ideas  socially 
evolved.  Society  is  the  great  mother  of  truly  human 
nature. 


304  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

Disorganization  is  inevitable  when  social  tradition  is 
disconcerted  by  the  outbreak  of  free  criticism  in  a  period 
of  transition.  However  frantically  the  social  tradition 
may  defend  itself,  the  recurrence  of  such  periods  is  in- 
evitable so  long  as  the  social  tradition  is  largely  based 
on  illusion,  speculation,  or  faith.  And  even  when  the 
social  tradition  is  solidest  the  disquieting  activity  of 
heretics  and  dissenters  will  not  be  wanting  until  the  social 
tradition  itself  is  formed  by  the  exercise  of  free  critical 
intelligence.  Only  so  can  the  largest  attainable  harmony 
be  reached  between  the  untrammeled  intelligence  of  indi- 
viduals and  the  traditions  of  the  group.  Then  the 
activity  of  free  and  critical  intelligence  will  move,  not 
against  the  main  foundations  of  the  social  tradition  but 
only  to  perfect  and  exalt  a  structure  with  the  plan  and 
principles  of  which  it  is  in  harmony. 

Of  all  the  achievements  of  reason  the  chief  in  practical 
importance  is  morality  or  the  discovery  of  the  method, 
not  of  mere  survival,  which  is  largely  prescribed  by  rea- 
sonless instinct,  but  of  happiness,  that  is,  of  balanced 
realization  of  the  values  of  experience  in  their  harmony 
and  totality.  This  realization  is  achieved  only  by  social 
cooperation  of  which  morality  is  the  method,  not  in- 
vented, but  discovered,  not  prescribed  by  authority,  but 
prescribed  by  the  laws  of  nature  and  slowly  discovered 
by  human  reason.  A  society  that  had  not  discovered 
the  methods  by  which  nature  allows  fires  to  be  made, 
metals  to  be  smelted,  fabrics  to  be  woven,  and  shelters  to 
be  built  could  hardly  rise  above  savagery.  A  society  that 
had  not  discovered  the  methods  of  agriculture  which  are 
prescribed  by  nature's  laws  could  not  rise  above  bar- 
barism. A  society  that  had  not  discovered  nature's  laws 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    305 

for  utilizing  winds  and  waters,  steam,  and  electricity,  for 
combating  the  assaults  of  microbes,  stilling  pain  under  the 
ministrations  of  surgery,  abridging  distance  and  giving 
permanence  and  pervasiveness  to  the  thoughts  and  senti- 
ments of  the  most  gifted  minds  could  not  rise  above  a 
semimedievalism.  A  society  that  has  not  discovered  the 
methods  prescribed  by  nature  for  organizing  the  coopera- 
tive activity  of  men,  women  and  children  into  an 
harmonious  system  in  which  all  achieve  for  each  what 
none  could  achieve  for  himself  cannot  rise  above  a  poor 
halting  place  on  the  path  of  progress  toward  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  possibilities  of  human  life. 

A  society  that  is  wise  enough  will  so  organize  itself 
that  the  way  of  the  transgressor  will  be  hard  and  the  path 
of  the  righteous  will  shine.  It  will  appreciate  and  reward 
and  aspire  to  every  beneficent  form  of  achievement  and 
will  elicit  such  achievement  up  to  the  very  limit  of  the 
capacity  of  nature.  Such  is  the  law  of  the  kingdom  of 
good.  No  society  yet  has  ever  understood  its  own  life 
and  the  conditions  of  good  well  enough  to  enforce  them. 
Most  individuals  are  still  blind  or  misled  or  uncertain 
as  to  this  most  vital  of  all  knowledge. 

Above  all,  there  is  lack  of  svcial  agreement  because 
men  have  not  yet  clearly  seen  the  meaning  of  the  facts 
of  life.  And  without  social  agreement  there  is  little  in- 
spiration unless  for  some  rare  prophet  or  seer.  We, 
being  social  beings,  do  not  wholly  trust  our  own  uncor- 
roborated judgment.  Or  even  if  we  trust  its  truth 
we  are  not  moved  and  swayed  by  it  as  when  from  child- 
hood parents  and  teachers  have  echoed  it,  and  in  maturity 
we  feel  ourselves  marching  in  cadenced  unison  with  all 


306  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

our  group  at  its  command.  Now  each  pioneering  indi- 
vidual halts  and  shuffles  in  his  onward  stumbling. 

When  adequate  knowledge  brings  agreement  we  need 
not  fear  that  men  will  merely  do  right  while  loving 
wrong  and  seek  for  the  mere  appearance  and  repute  and 
rewards  of  goodness  without  loving  goodness.  Many 
will  desire  goodness  as  youths  desire  strength.  Good- 
ness, in  the  wise  sense  in  which  it  then  will  be  defined, 
will  be  the  personal  ideal  approved  by  reason  and  en- 
throned in  the  sentiments.  Men  need  only  to  have  the 
right  ideas  as  they  are  prescribed  by  nature  seen  clearly 
enough  to  command  the  consent  of  the  competent,  and 
disseminated  generally  enough,  and  they  will  fashion  the 
sentiments  as  well  as  command  the  outward  conduct  of 
normal  men.  That  which  men  will  demand  of  each  other 
they  will  demand  of  themselves.  Righteousness  will  be 
a  reality,  not  a  sham.  And  that  reality  will  have  as  its 
inmost  essence  cooperation,  participation,  the  functioning 
of  each  in  the  close  personal  relations  and  wide  imper- 
sonal ones  according  to  nature's  discovered  method  by 
which  all  secure  the  good  of  each. 

Either  there  is  no  order  of  nature  or  there  is  such  a 
method.  Let  us  but  have  the  ideas  that  correspond  to 
nature's  real  requirements,  and  those  ideas  will  be  to  life, 
both  personal  and  social,  what  the  sun  is  to  the  life  of 
plants  and  animals — giving  light  as  well  as  warmth,  and 
purification  as  well  as  power. 

This,  then,  is  our  conclusion :  Reason  is  the  chief  de- 
pendence of  mankind  for  the  solution  of  both  of  life's 
great  problems,  for  the  organization  of  society  and  for 
the  socialization  of  the  individual.  Supernaturalists  and 
metaphysicians  may  assert  that  reason  should  be  silent 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    307 

in  order  that  faith  or  what  they  please  to  call  intuition 
may  speak.  But  the  natural  science  view  of  life  in- 
evitably asserts  itself  and  proclaims  that  it  is  through 
the  persistent  exercise  of  reason  that  we  discover  the 
method  of  life  and  turn  the  propulsions  of  human  nature 
into  virtues. 

Socialization  depends  upon  the  gradual  discovery  of 
those  forms  of  experience  in  which  life's  values  inhere 
and  still  more  upon  the  gradual  recognition  of  the  natu- 
ral conditions  upon  which  the  realization  of  such  experi- 
ence depends.  That  is  to  say,  the  method  of  ethical 
evolution  is  empirical.  Experience  is  the_great  teacher, 
but  experience  must  be  interpreted  l>yintelligence.  And 
the  judgments  formed  by  intelligence  must  become  the 
focus  of  sentiments  and  the  incitements  of  instinctive  re- 
sponse, for  in  socialized  man  the  ideas  that  set  the 
instincts  in  motion  are  not  only  those  which  are  presented 
by  sense  perception  but  also  those  which  are  presented 
as  the  result  of  the  intelligent  interpretation  of  age-long 
experience.  And  the  acquired  sentiments,  which  become 
as  truly  ingrained  in  his  organism  as  habits,  supplement 
man's  inborn  propensities  and  become  a  part  of  his  soul. 
These  sentiments  in  which  judgments  combine  with  feel- 
ing give  form  to  his  idealism,  pride,  and  altruism,  and 
supplement  the  equipment  of  instinctive  gregariousness 
so  that  it  becomes  adequate  not  only  to  the  requirements 
of  the  primitive  horde  but  also  to  those  of  the  expanded 
and  diversified  relationships  of  advanced  society.  The 
capacity  of  man  for  the  judgments  which  issue  from 
the  rational  interpretation  of  experience  and  for  the 
rationalized  sentiments  which  radiate  from  any  to  each 


308  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

is  the  measure  of  his  possible  advancement  and  of  the 
realization  of  his  possibilities  of  good  experience. 

In  the  course  of  hundreds  of  thousands  of  years  the 
evolution  of  social  instincts  has  equipped  man  for  the 
life  of  the  horde.  It  may  even  carry  adaptation  to  social 
life  somewhat  beyond  that  point,  but  it  does  not  equip 
man  for  participation  in  the  life  of  an  advanced  society. 
The  best  we  can  hope  is  that  it  provides  him  with  the 
capacity  to  acquire  such  equipment.  As  biological  evolu- 
tion has  provided  us  with  the  convolutions  of  Broca  and 
Wernicke,  and  so  with  the  capacity  for  speech,  yet  leaves 
it  necessary  for  each  individual  to  learn  a  language  which 
has  been  developed  by  the  society  to  which  he  belongs, 
so  also  we  have  reason  to  believe  that  biological  evolu- 
tion has  provided  us  with  the  capacity  for  an  effective 
conscience  adapted  to  bring  to  realization  the  rich  possi- 
bilities of  advanced  social  life.  But  it  is  as  necessary 
for  society  to  evolve  a  conscience  code  as  for  it  to  evolve 
a  language,  and  it  is  as  necessary  for  each  individual  to 
acquire  that  combination  of  judgments  and  especially  of 
sentiments  which  we  call  a  conscience  as  it  is  for  him  to 
learn  to  talk.  As  he  remains  dumb  if  he  never  learns 
the  speech  which  his  society  has  evolved,  and  is  un- 
adjusted to  any  given  society  if  he  knows  only  a  lan- 
guage that  is  foreign  to  it,  so  he  remains  unadapted  to 
participation  in  the  social  life  of  an  advanced  society 
unless  a  distinct  moral  ideal  has  been  conceived  by  him, 
adopted  by  his  judgment  and  intrenched  in  his  senti- 
ments. It  must  have  become  the  model  of  the  self  he 
means  to  be,  a  participating  social  self. 

The  present  task  of  progress,  and  always  its  greatest 
task,  is  to  construct  a  social  order  built  upon  ethical 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    309 

judgments  that  as  yet  are  not  clearly  formed  in  the  com- 
mon sense  of  any  great  society  and  to  form  the  con- 
sciences of  individuals  in  accordance  with  true  ethical 
judgments.  Moral  law  is  not  a  codicil  to  life;  it  is  the 
method  prescribed  by  the  nature  of  things  for  man's 
participation  in  the  necessarily  cooperative  task  of  real- 
izing life's  possibilities.  The  task  of  those  who  work 
to  make  the  world  better  is  not  to  promote  faith  or 
mystical  experience,  but  knowledge  and  good  work. 
Not  "good  works"  added  to  life's  normal  duties,  but  the 
good  performance  of  life's  normal  duties,  in  the  full 
realization  that  all  human  life  is  social  life,  that  conflict 
can  never  solve  its  problems,  but  that  its  problems  will 
be  solved  in  proportion  as  individuals  seek  their  own 
good  in  ways  consistent  with  the  general  good  and  know 
that  each  must  do  a  daily  task,  as  sailors  on  a  ship  or 
soldiers  in  an  army  do  their  tasks,  as  participants  in  a 
system  of  cooperation.  Supernatural  religion  affords 
powerful  secondary  motives  to  righteousness,  but  the 
primary  motives  are  in  the  facts  that  make  right  right 
and  wrong  wrong,  and  these  facts  are  substantial  and 
observable,  irrespective  of  notions  about  the  supernatural, 
and  make  their  appeal  to  altruism,  pride,  and  idealism, 
and  guide  the  molding  and  forcing  pressures  of  social 
opinion. 

Ethics  must  be  transferred  from  speculation  to 
science,  and  preaching  from  observance  and  creed  to 
good  work.  We  must  learn,  what  Confucius  long  ago 
taught,  that  righteousness  is  the  justification  of  the  names 
that  designate  our  social  relationships;  the  citizen  must 
act  like  a  citizen,  the  father  like  a  father,  the  husband 
like  a  husband,  the  son  like  a  son.  We  must  recognize 


310  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

that  the  line  between  the  sheep  and  the  goats,  the  good 
and  the  bad  man,  the  Christian  and  the  sinner,  is  the 
line  between  those  who  do  and  those  who  do  not  choose 
their  ambitions  and  govern  their  daily  endeavor  by  the 
realization  that  life  is  teamwork.  Self-seeking  must  be 
within  the  channels  formed  by  wise  social  judgment  as 
to  what  constitutes  success,  and  must  not  only  consent 
to  the  requirements  of  general  welfare  but  must  glory 
in  conformity  to  a  reasonable  personal  ideal.  Such 
preaching  will  not  leave  the  heart  cold.  Only  such  life 
fulfills  the  requirements  of  our  own  social  nature.  Once 
enlightened  and  caught  up  in  the  tide  of  an  enlightened 
social  life,  we  cannot  give  ourselves  with  full  consent  and 
peace  and  joy  to  any  other  mode  of  life.  As  the  face 
of  many  a  rich  and  self-indulgent  youth,  well  endowed 
with  instinctive  social  virtue,  first  lost  the  look  of 
cynicism  and  discontent  when  the  Great  War  set  him  a 
truly  social  task,  so  our  race  will  find  itself  and  discover 
the  secret  of  gladness  when  the  current  definitions  of 
success  and  prevalent  enthusiasms  are  formed  upon  dis- 
cernment of  our  common  task.  Then  we  shall  rally  to 
the  standard  of  humanity's  great  enterprise.  We  need 
only  to  listen  to  the  voice  of  nature's  laws  of  life  and 
we  shall  find  that  they  teach  a  religion  that  will  evoke 
the  most  ringing  eloquence,  the  most  inspiring  music, 
the  noblest  architecture,  the  most  constant  devotion,  and 
the  most  zestful  life. 

The  existence  of  all  the  tendencies  which  we  have  con- 
sidered is  beyond  doubt,  but  our  knowledge  of  them  is 
not  quantitative.  We  can  get  good  men  in  a  good  society 
— men  who  are  good  according  to  the  standards  which 


SOCIALIZATION  THROUGH  REASON    311 

that  society  has  adopted.  Of  this  the  stoic  Indian,  the 
hard  but  heroic  Spartan,  the  loyal  liegeman,  the  mission- 
ary, and  countless  martyrs,  and  vast  numbers  of  common 
men  and  women,  some  of  whom  we  each  have  known, 
give  abundant  proof.  But  whether  we  can  get  enough 
of  goodness  to  fulfill  our  hopes  of  the  democratic 
realization  of  human  worth  and  weal,  we  may  not  be 
sure.  Of  this,  however,  we  are  sure,  that  to  despair  of 
that  hope  at  this  early  day  would  be  craven  and  despic- 
able. The  application  of  the  methods  of  science  to  the 
mastery  of  material  resources  is  very  recent.  Its  appli- 
cation to  the  utilization  of  the  resources  of  human  nature 
has  not  yet  had  a  fair  trial. 

The  purpose  of  this  essay  has  been  to  encourage  the 
passage  of  ethics  from  the  metaphysical  to  the  scientific 
stage,  from  the  realm  of  speculation  to  the  frank  accept- 
ance of  the  matter-of-fact  basis  for  moral  judgments  and 
the  natural  sources  of  ethical  motives  and  so  to  help  us 
face  life  as  it  is,  not  as  it  has  been  imagined  by  mystics 
and  metaphysicians,  to  derive  our  motives  from  the 
actual  not  from  the  illusory,  to  escape  the  panic  of  the 
world  at  loss  of  the  dreams  which  advancing  intelligence 
dissipates,  and  to  substitute  serenity  by  accepting  our 
world,  acknowledging  our  limitations  and  girding  our- 
selves to  make  the  most  of  what  nature  has  actually 
afforded  us.  Whatever  the  light  shatters,  we  will  let  fall 
and  will  not  stand  like  a  housewife,  weeping  over  a 
broken  cup,  but  let  the  fragments  drift  down  the  stream 
of  time.  We  see  ourselves  as  we  are,  not  anchored  in  a 
pool  of  placid  eternity,  but  driving  down  the  stormy  flux 
of  things.  We  rejoice  that  for  a  span  we  are  not  clods 


312  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

but  conscious  life,  capable  of  values,  and  aware  that  in 
the  causal  nexus  our  functioning  is  the  efficient  condition 
of  values  in  the  life  of  others,  that  for  the  moment  we 
are  the  bearers  of  the  social  heritage  and  pass  it  on,  worse 
or  better,  for  the  responses  that  we  make  to  life's  exi- 
gencies. 


CHAPTER  XII 

SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE— PHILOSOPHIC 
IMPLICATIONS 

This  chapter  is  a  mere  appendix.  It  is  unnecessary 
except  for  readers  who  have  felt  disposed  to  question 
the  underlying  concepts  which  have  seemed  to  be  implied 
in  the  foregoing  discussion.  One  who  has  no  pretensions 
to  being  a  professional  philosopher  must  venture  with 
modest  apologies  upon  the  discussion  of  ultimate  con- 
cepts. But  it  is  not  too  bold  for  any  one  who  speaks  to 
define  his  terms.  And  all  who  speak  on  such  a  theme  as 
this  use  terms  that  call  for  definition.  The  positive 
definitions  of  terms  which  follow  will  be  intelligible  and 
may  win  assent  even  if  the  negative  criticism  of  other 
views  should  appear  to  some  to  be  misdirected. 

COMMON  SENSE 

The  phrase  "common  sense"  has  two  meanings:  first, 
the  common  sense  of  a  society,  and  second,  the  common 
sense  of  the  whole  human  species.  The  ideas  and  senti- 
ments that  are  held  in  common  by  all  the  members  of  a 
society  are  almost  sure  to  seem  to  those  people  to  be 
inherently  and  obviously  "sensible"  sentiments  and  obvi- 
ously and  undebatably  true  ideas.  But  such  ideas  and 
sentiments  may  vary  from  one  society  to  another  and 
from  one  age  to  the  next.  In  contrast  with  these  local 

313 


314  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

and  temporary  sentiments  and  ideas,  "common  sense," 
in  the  second  meaning  of  that  phrase,  refers  to  the  fea- 
tures of  experience  that  are  so  determined  by  the  biologi- 
cal organism  of  the  human  species  as  to  be  common  to 
the  Zulu  and  Woodrow  Wilson.  Each  suffers  pain  if 
burned,  is  startled  by  a  sudden  loud  noise,  experiences 
the  promptings  of  instinct,  the  discriminations  of 
pleasure-pain,  the  five  kinds  of  sensation,  and  his  ideas 
organize  themselves  according  to  the  relations  of  time, 
space,  and  causal  conditioning.  The  experimental  evi- 
dence of  such  similarity,  or  of  the  common  sense  of  the 
human  species,  is  overwhelming.  We  know  it  if  we  know 
anything.  It  is  in  this  second  and  more  universal  mean- 
ing that  the  phrase  common  sense  has  been  employed  in 
this  discussion  except  in  instances  where  "the  common 
sense  of  a  society"  has  been  clearly  indicated. 

Common  sense,  in  the  first  meaning  of  that  phrase,  is 
at  many  points  easily  discredited.  Common  sense,  in  the 
second  meaning  of  that  phrase,  cannot  be  discredited  for 
it  is  the  method  of  man's  mind,  and  he  has  nothing  higher 
than  his  own  mind  to  which  he  can  appeal  against  his 
own  mind.  The  reader  is  implored  to  remember  always 
that  the  right  to  heap  disparagement  upon  common 
sense,  in  the  first  meaning  of  that  phrase,  is  not  denied; 
and  that  it  is  in  the  second  meaning  of  the  phrase  that 
it  is  employed  in  the  following  discussion.  Common 
sense,  in  this  second  and  broader  meaning  of  that  term, 
is  as  truly  a  characteristic  of  the  human  race  as  the 
mammalian  reproductive  system,  the  digestive  apparatus, 
or  air-breathing  lungs.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt 
that  there  is  a  common  sense  of  dogs  and  a  common 
sense  of  crows.  And  there  is  abundant  evidence  that 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       315 

the  common  sense  of  the  higher  animals,  so  far  as  it 
goes,  bears  important  resemblances  to  the  common  sense 
of  man.  Common  sense,  like  digestion  and  breathing, 
is  a  form  of  functional  adaptation  to  environment,  a  part 
of  the  life  process.  It  is  the  method  for  securing  the 
adjustment  of  muscular  movement  to  our  environment 
of  folks  and  things. 

The  curious  and  amazing  thing  about  it  is  that  it  is 
sense,  that  it  is  consciousness.  This  might  be  unneces- 
sary if  all  those  stimulations  which  must  guide  our  con- 
duct if  we  are  to  survive  were  obvious.  A  mechanism  so 
complex  as  ours  might  conceivably  be  so  constructed  as 
to  do  all  the  right  things  as  unconsciously  as  the  amceba 
flees  from  a  drop  of  acid  and  pursues  a  drop  of  beef 
juice,  provided  all  the  necessary  stimulations  were  di- 
rectly supplied  by  the  external  world.  But  they  are  not; 
the  stimulants  supplied  by  present  external  objects  must 
be  supplemented  by  stimulations  which  represent l  the 
absent,  the  hidden,  and  the  future.  We  must  solve  puz- 
zles, and  must  escape  the  foe  that  lurks  around  the  corner 
out  of  sight  but  whose  presence  is  inferred  from  signs, 
and  we  have  not  only  to  seize  the  food  before  us,  but  to 
plow  for  the  crop  that  has  not  yet  grown.2 

MIND,  CONSCIOUSNESS,  SOUL 

Common  sense,  as  just  defined,  is  only  another  expres- 
sion for  the  normal  functioning  of  the  human  mind. 
There  are  only  two  kinds  of  observable  reality  that  can  be 

'The  limited,  but  practically  essential,  way  in  which  they  "rep- 
resent" the  absent  and  the  future  is  discussed  a  little  later. 
'But  compare  also  page  334. 


316  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

connoted  by  the  phrase  "the  human  mind,"  namely,  one  or 
both  of  the  following :  First,  the  concatenated  ideas  and 
feelings  which  are  conditioned  by  the  functioning  of  our 
psychophysical  mechanism;  second,  the  psychophysical 
mechanism  which  conditions  this  stream  of  conscious- 
ness. "Consciousness"  has  been  defined  above  as  the 
sum  total  of  ideas  and  feelings.  The  word  conscious- 
ness as  here  employed  is  simply  a  generic  term  for  ideas 
and  feelings.  Consciousness  is  not  something  behind 
ideas  and  feelings  which  has  them,  or  in  which  they  exist. 
We  have  no  knowledge  of  any  such  entity  nor  any  occa- 
sion for  assuming  its  existence.  And  the  human  "soul," 
as  we  have  employed  the  word,  is  the  sum  total  of  man's 
capacities,  inherited  and  acquired,  for  conscious  states, 
that  is,  for  ideas  and  feelings. 

The  only  peculiarity  of  these  definitions  is  that  they 
employ  the  terms  defined  to  denote  objects  of  thought 
which  come  within  the  compass  of  our  experience  rather 
than  to  symbolize  what  lies  beyond  our  knowledge. 
Some  may  object  to  these  definitions  because  they  do  not 
postulate  the  existence  of  a  mind-stuff  or  soul-substance, 
but  only  observable  things  and  events.  But  precisely 
therein  lies  their  value.  About  ultimate  substances  we 
have  no  knowledge,  and  can  make  neither  affirmations 
nor  denials.  The  limits  of  our  definitions  should  coincide 
exactly  with  the  limits  that  bound  our  knowledge,  unless 
we  are  consciously  dealing  with  hypotheses  about  the  un- 
known. To  smuggle  hypotheses  about  the  unknown  into 
the  definition  of  facts  is  to  rob  our  terms  of  their  validity 
as  instruments  of  thought. 

It  is  impossible  to  define  or  describe  consciousness  in 
terms  of  anything  but  itself,  for  there  is  no  material  of 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       317 

knowledge  outside  of  consciousness,  even  for  the  knowl- 
edge of  consciousness.  The  definition  of  consciousness  in 
terms  of  anything  outside  of  consciousness  is  further  re- 
moved from  possibility  than  would  be  the  definition  of 
color  to  a  man  born  blind.  However  all  normal  human 
beings  have  ideas  and  feelings  as  the  phrase  common  sense 
indicates.  It  is,  therefore,  intelligible  to  all  normal  human 
beings  to  say  that  consciousness  is  the  generic  name  for 
ideas  and  feelings.  It  is  this  commonness  of  experience 
that  makes  any  communication  possible,  any  word  of  a 
speaker  intelligible  to  a  listener.  The  success  of  com- 
munication is  a  pragmatic  test  of  the  validity  of  common 
sense. 

This  would  be  enough  in  the  way  of  a  definition  of 
consciousness,  but  there  is  one  thing  more  that  can  be 
said  of  consciousness,  that  is,  of  ideas  and  feelings; 
namely,  consciousness  alone  is  immediate  knowledge,  or 
— which  is  the  same  statement — our  ideas  and  feelings, 
and  they  alone,  are  known  immediately.  By  "immedi- 
ately" I  mean  independently  of  the  medium  of  sense  per- 
ception. We  do  not  have  to  see,  hear,  smell,  taste,  or 
touch  our  ideas  or  feelings.  Ideas  and  feelings  are 
events  in  our  own  life  process.  They  are  our  life  process 
in  one  of  its  aspects.  Any  other  thing  is  external  to  our 
life  process,  as  trees,  rocks,  and  beasts;  or  else  it  is  our 
own  organism  perceived  as  the  organism  of  a  beast  can 
be  perceived.  The  sense  organs  are  parts  of  our  organ- 
ism which  can  be  so  affected  by  trees,  rocks  and  beasts 
as  to  set  up  the  activities  which  we  experience  as  ideas 
and  feelings.  We  cannot  be  conscious  of  a  stone  or  a 
chair.  We  can  only  be  aware  of  it.  We  should  distin- 
guish between  being  aware  of  all  other  objects  and  their 


318  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

qualities  and  being  conscious  of  our  own  ideas  and  feel- 
ings. We  can  be  conscious  of  nothing  but  our  own  ideas 
and  feelings.2  Being  "conscious  of"  an  idea  or  feeling 
means  the  same  as  the  existence  of  an  idea  or  feeling. 
Consciousness,  let  us  repeat,  is  not  something  in  addition 
to  ideas  and  feelings.  It  is  ideas  and  feelings. 

As  was  pointed  out  above,  the  human  mind,  or  com- 
mon sense  and  consciousness,  exists  as  the  means  by 
which  we  are  stimulated  to  action  adapted  to  the  absent 
and  the  obscure.  This  is  the  biological  function,  purpose, 
or  raison  d'etre  of  consciousness.  In  speaking  of  the 
process  of  life  the  word  "function"  is  used  in  two  senses : 
either  to  mean  an  activity,  or  to  mean  the  purpose  served 
or  result  attained  by  activity.  Here  we  are  using  the 
word  function  in  the  second  sense.  To  state  the  function, 
in  this  sense  of  the  word,  is  not  to  describe  or  define  the 
nature  of  the  activity  itself.  However,  just  now  some 
of  the  ablest  of  modern  philosophers  known  as  prag- 
matists  8  go  so  far  as  to  declare  that  the  very  essence 
of  consciousness  is  a  "Functioning  of  the  future  in  the 
present."  They  tell  us  that  "Purposive  control  is 
demonstrably  the  very  essence  of  knowing,"  4  and  that 
"To  be  conscious  is  to  have  a  future  possible  result  of 
present  behavior  embodied  as  a  present  existence  ( !) 
functioning  as  a  stimulus  to  further  behavior."  5 

"The  objection  that  this  is  solipsism  will  be  considered  later. 
Compare  page  339. 

'Although  the  word  "pragmatist"  is  used  to  designate  those 
teachers  who  hold  the  view  here  stated,  this  view  may  not  prove  to 
be  any  permanent  and  essential  part  of  pragmatism.  Cf,  pages  342, 

343- 

4  E.  E.  Sabin,  Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology  and  Scientific 
Method,  xvi.  493. 

8B.  H.  Bode,  in  "Creative  Intelligence,"  Essays  by  John  Dewey 
and  others,  240.  New  York,  1917. 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE        319 

One  may  venture  to  object  to  this  definition  of  con- 
sciousness on  the  following  grounds :  First,  not  all  con- 
sciousness is  purposive;  second,  not  all  consciousness  is 
ideas,  feelings  also  are  consciousness;  third,  the  use  of 
language  in  this  definition  of  consciousness  is  mon- 
strously distorted. 

To  the  last  objection  the  answer  is  made  that  any  use 
of  language  is  justified  provided  "notice  is  served"  of 
the  precise  sense  in  which  words  are  to  be  employed. 
But  even  if  notice  is  served  it  still  is  objectionable  to 
call  three  five,  or  to  call  present  future.  There  is  grave 
danger  that  the  same  word  may  be  used  part  of  the  time 
in  its  regular  meaning  and  part  of  the  time  in  its  arbitra- 
rily assigned  meaning.  This  is  done  by  those  who  after 
defining  present  consciousness  as  "a  functioning  of  the 
future"  argue  from  that  definition  that  conscious  action 
is  uncaused  because  controlled  by  the  future  and  not  by 
the  present  and  past. 

To  the  second  objection  there  is,  so  far  as  I  know, 
not  even  the  semblance  of  a  reply.  Consciousness  in- 
cludes feelings  as  well  as  ideas.  They  are  our  heaven  or 
our  hell.  They  include  all  the  values  of  life  and  can  by 
no  means  be  omitted  in  our  definition  of  consciousness. 
It  may  be  true,  biologically  speaking,  that  all  feeling 
exists  as  an  incitement  or  as  a  deterrent  to  conduct.  Feel- 
ing, like  all  consciousness,  exists  to  control  conduct. 
That  is  its  function.  Even  the  feeling  of  beauty  at  the 
sight  of  a  sunset,  though  not  a  direct  incitement  to  action, 
is  an  adjustment  of  our  being  which  fits  us  for  behavior. 

But  even  of  bodily  pleasures  and  pains  and  instinctive 
emotions,  which  of  all  feelings  are  the  most  obviously 
impulses  to  behavior,  it  is  not  enough  to  say  that  they 


320  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

are  impulses.  As  to  their  function  as  impulses,  as  deter- 
rents or  incitements  to  behavior,  a  smart  may  be  indis- 
tinguishable from  an  ache,  and  the  taste  of  a  grapefruit 
indistinguishable  from  the  taste  of  a  custard.  But  as 
feelings  they  are  not  indistinguishable.  There  is  "want 
more"  in  the  experience  of  eating  grapefruit,  custard,  or 
bonbons.  They  cannot  be  defined  merely  as  "want 
more,"  for  the  "want  more"  is  common  to  them  all. 
The  taste  of  grapefruit  is  not  simply  "want  more."  It 
is  distinctly  different  as  consciousness  from  the  taste  of 
custard  or  bonbons.  This  differing  experience  is  pre- 
cisely what  feeling  as  consciousness  is.  Feeling  as  con- 
sciousness is  not  merely  impulse  to  future  behavior :  it  is 
present  experience  of  a  very  definite  sort.  Moreover, 
there  are  hosts  of  impulses  in  the  biological  process  which 
ordinarily  are  not  separately  felt,  or  are  not  felt  at  all. 
One  who  is  otherwise  sufficiently  excited  may  even  eat 
bonbons  without  tasting  them,  though,  in  such  a  case, 
there  may  exist  in  the  subconscious  an  impulse  corre- 
sponding to  taste.  Since  there  are  many  impulses  to 
future  behavior  that  are  not  felt,  it  is  no  definition  of 
feeling  to  say  that  it  is  impulse.  Feelings  are  specifically 
different  from  unfelt  impulses.  The  quality  of  feeling 
which  defines  it  is  not  that  it  is  impulse  to  behavior  but 
that  it  is  felt.  The  definition  of  the  pragmatist  omits 
the  essence  of  consciousness. 

To  the  first  of  the  three  objections  brought  against 
the  Pragmatist's  definition  of  consciousness,  the  ob- 
jection that  not  all  consciousness  is  purposive,  his  whole 
argument  is  a  reply.  His  argument  does  not  apply  to 
feeling,  but  he  avers  that  all  knowing  is  "purposive  con- 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       321 

trol"  and  a  "functioning  of  the  future  in  the  present." 
"Suppose  I  hear  a  noise.  The  noise  is  just  noise,  and 
so  far,  we  do  not  classify  it  as  either  physical  or  mental. 
But  let  us  examine  it  further.  It  has  a  peculiar  trait,  a 
'what-is-it'  quality,  so  that  I  cock  my  ear,  turn  my  eyes, 
perhaps  step  to  the  window  to  look  out.  The  noise  as 
heard  has  a  peculiar  inherent  incompleteness  (the  'what- 
is-it'  quality) ;  and  hence  it  sets  going  activities  directed 
toward  getting  a  better  stimulus."  6  And  this  is  pre- 
cisely what  constitutes  the  essence  and  definition  of  con- 
sciousness. 

But  this  is  no  more  than  saying  that  knowing  is  a 
functional  process  which  goes  on  till  the  function  is  per- 
formed. Every  item  in  any  functional  process  is  a  going 
on  to  the  next.  Every  part  of  a  functional  process  con- 
trols future  parts  of  the  process  and  secures  future  results. 
This  is  true  of  the  beating  of  the  heart,  the  peristalsis  of 
the  abdomen,  or  the  creeping  of  a  potato  sprout  toward 
the  light.7  Any  definition  of  consciousness  must  tell  us 
something  more  about  it  than  this  which  is  true  of  every 
biological  process  whatsoever.  Wherein  does  conscious- 
ness differ  from  the  beating  of  the  heart,  the  peristalsis 
of  the  abdomen  or  the  tropism  of  the  potato  sprout,  all 
of  which  have  it  as  their  function  to  control  future  parts 

"Professor  Bode  in  correspondence. 

'Indeed  everything  in  nature  is  known  to  us  only  as  functioning 
or  process.  It  is  better,  however,  to  use  the  word  process  for 
this  universal  fact,  and  not  to  speak  of  the  functioning  of  a  stone 
but  to  reserve  the  word  function  as  the  name  for  organic  or  super- 
organic,  that  is,  biological  and  social  process. 

The  writer  was  the  first  to  introduce  into  sociology  this  con- 
ception that  all  is  essentially  process,  writing  in  1902.  Compare 
the  recognition  of  this  priority  by  Dean  Albion  W.  Small  on  page 
3  of  his  General  Sociology.  Chicago,  1905. 


322  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

of  the  process?  In  this,  replies  the  pragmatist,  that  in 
these  physical  processes  each  act  in  the  process,  although 
it  controls  future  acts,  is  itself  wholly  controlled  by  the 
past,  while  in  consciousness  there  is  always  "a  future 
possible  result  functioning  as  a  present  stimulus  to  fur- 
ther behavior/'  Let  us  examine  this  reply. 

Absorbed  in  thought,  one  may  sit  down  in  a  familiar 
chair  and  pick  up  his  pen  in  pure  unconscious  autom- 
atism; but  if  the  action  is  conscious  he  is  aware  of  his 
chair  as  suggesting  the  act  of  being  seated,  and  of  his 
pen  as  that  with  which  he  is  going  to  write.  Knowl- 
edge of  chair  and  pen,  says  the  pragmatist,  is  "a  pointing 
toward  the  future  acts  of  writing  and  sitting  down." 
No  one  denies  that  there  is  a  difference  between  "a  future 
possible"  fact  and  a  present  actual  fact.  This  difference 
is  recognized  by  the  pragmatists  by  saying  that  when  "a 
future  possible  result  functions  in  the  present  as  a  stimu- 
lus to  behavior"  the  present  actual  fact  is  a  "reference  to" 
or  "pointing  to"  a  future  possible  result.  "Reference  to" 
and  "pointing  to"  are  substitute  phrases  for  "idea  of." 

The  pragmatist  wants  a  substitute  for  the  phrase  "idea 
of"  because  that  more  familiar  expression  has  been  used 
with  the  implication  that  when  the  man  sees  his  chair 
three  kinds  of  entity  are  present:  first,  the  physical 
organism  of  the  observer;  second,  the  object  observed; 
and  third,  the  idea  of  the  object.  In  fact,  however,  so 
far  as  our  knowledge  goes  nothing  is  present  but  the 
process  of  nature,  part  of  which  is  living  and  functional 
in  the  observer,  and  part  of  which  is  physicochemical 
and  embodied  in  the  chair.  We  know  nothing  as  to 
whether  the  metaphysics  involved  is  monistic  or  pluralis- 
tic. The  familiar  phrase  "idea  of"  has  implied  the 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       323 

existence  of  a  separate  kind  of  entity  a  "mind  stuff/'  8 
and  it  is  time  for  us  to  avoid  any  such  implication  as  to 
what  lies  beyond  our  knowledge  and  to  realize  that  all  we 
know  is  part  and  parcel  of  the  process  of  nature,  ideas 
being  events  in  the  life  of  the  observer.  All  this  is  true 
and  was  an  habitual  mode  of  thought  to  some  sociologists 
before  they  ever  heard  of  pragmatism. 

But  does  the  formula  of  the  pragmatist  constitute  a 
definition  of  consciousness  or  even  of  knowing  as  dis- 
tinguished from  feeling?  It  rightly  absorbs  conscious- 
ness into  the  process  of  nature,  but  a  definition  must 
distinguish  consciousness  from  the  other  recognizable 
forms  of  natural  event.  The  way  in  which  the  prag- 
matist proposes  to  distinguish  consciousness  from  all  the 
other  events  of  life  is  to  say  that  consciousness  is  an 
actual  present  event  which  ' 'points  to"  a  future  event. 
Is  this  the  whole  truth  about  consciousness  and  adequate 
as  a  definition?  Does  consciousness  point  only  to  future 
events,  or  does  it  point  also  to  past  events  and  to  other 
facts  of  the  present? 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  consciousness  always  points  to 
the  past.  It  exists  for  the  guidance  of  the  future  by  the 
past.  It  arises  caused  out  of  the  past.  By  virtue  of  the 
nature  and  causation  of  ideas  and  feelings  they  all  have 
backward  reference  whether  they  ripen  to  the  point  of 
having  future  reference  or  not.  Memory  and  mere 
musing  on  the  past  includes  no  awareness  of  the  future. 
Much  of  the  time  when  consciousness  is  going  on  we  are 
unaware  of  any  future  reference.  To  say  that  future 

•In  the  following  discussion  I  propose  to  keep  as  far  as  any 
pragmatist  from  implying  the  existence  of  a  "mind  stuff,"  without 
resorting  to  the  peculiar  expedient  which  pragmatists  adopt  for 
that  purpose. 


324  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

reference  is  the  essence  of  consciousness,  therefore,  is  to 
say  that  something  is  the  essence  of  consciousness  which 
in  many  instances  is  wholly  absent  from  consciousness. 

To  this  the  pragmatist  replies :  Your  memory  of 
yesterday's  chair  is  memory  of  a  thing  to  be  sat  on.  It 
is  nothing  but  memory  of  a  "pointing"  toward  an  act  of 
sitting  down  which  was  future  with  reference  to  the  act 
of  perceiving  the  chair.  You  remember  the  chair  only 
as  a  pointing  toward  an  act  to  be  performed. 

This  reply  calls  for  two  remarks : 

First:  What  about  ideas  of  our  own  acts:  are  they 
merely  pointings  toward  other  acts?  Is  the  memory  of 
being  seated  in  a  porch  chair  nothing  but  memory  of  a 
pointing  toward  some  other  action?  If  our  idea  of  an 
objective  thing  is  always  a  pointing  toward  possible 
behavior  with  reference  to  that  thing,  is  the  same  true  of 
our  ideas  of  our  own  behavior  itself,  and  of  all  our 
experiences,  feelings,  or  thoughts,  and  of  our  ideas  of 
the  behavior  and  experiences  of  other  men,  are  our  ideas 
of  these  activities  always  and  solely  pointings  toward  our 
own  future  behavior?  I  trow  not.  To  admit  it  would 
be  to  contradict  our  experience.  And  if  not,  then  the 
doctrine  of  "pointing"  or  "future  reference"  as  a  defini- 
tion of  consciousness  is  again  disproved,  as  it  was  dis- 
proved by  its  inapplicability  to  feelings.  A  statement 
which  is  inapplicable  to  our  feelings  and  to  our  ideas  of 
our  own  activity  is  impossible  as  a  definition  of  con- 
sciousness, even  if  it  be  a  true  statement  with  reference 
to  our  ideas  of  objective  things. 

Second:  As  to  our  ideas  of  objective  things,  these 
ideas  are  events  in  our  own  functioning  which  may 
"point"  to  events  in  the  process  of  nature  which  are 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       325 

incidents  in  the  functioning  of  other  living1  beings,  or 
in  the  existence  9  of  inanimate  objects.10  The  pragmatist 
devises  his  definition  of  consciousness  with  special  ref- 
erence to  ideas  of  this  kind,  and  declares  that  the  idea 
of  a  stone  or  a  chair  is  nothing  but  a  pointing  to  our 
own  future  action.  He  does  so  not  only  because 
he  is  anxious  to  avoid  the  unjustifiable  "mind-stuff" 
assumption,  but  also  because  he  wishes  to  escape  the 
epistemological  difficulty  of  getting  in  consciousness  ideas 
of  objects  that  are  not  in  consciousness;  but  this  difficulty 
can  only  be  dodged,  or  escaped  ostrichwise.  It  remains 
unsolved  and  to  us  insoluble.  Common  sense  merely 
describes  the  facts  as  they  appear  in  experience  and  then 
stops,  not  attempting  to  go  behind  the  facts  in  search  of 
metaphysical  explanations.  Pragmatism  seeks  to  render 
the  metaphysical  problem  nonexistent  by  omitting  part  of 
the  facts  and  by  giving  for  those  facts  which  it  retains  a 
weirdly  unfamiliar  description  in  place  of  the  universally 
familiar  description  of  common  sense.  When  common 
sense  says,  "I  see  a  chair,"  pragmatism  says,  "A  chair 
is  functioning  as  a  pointing  to  your  act  of  sitting  down 
and  this  pointing  of  the  chair  is  consciousness,  and  all 
consciousness  is  nothing  but  such  pointings." 

Thus  Professor  Bode  tells  us  10  that  to  perceive  a  razor 
is  to  experience  a  prompting  to  shrink  from  being  cut, 
that  being  conscious  in  this  case  is  simply  getting  the 

'We  can  conceive  of  all  existence  as  process.  And  the  prag- 
matists  are  accustomed  to  speak  of  the  "functioning"  of  a  chair  or 
of  a  stone.  But  although  the  existence  of  a  chair  and  of  a  man 
may  both  be  chemicophysical  process,  yet  there  is  an  important, 
though  not  a  clear,  difference  between  the  living  and  the  not  living. 
It  seems,  therefore,  to  be  an  aid  to  discriminating  thought  to  reserve 
the  word  "functioning"  to  the  events  which  are  included  in  the 
process  of  life. 

10  "Creative  Intelligence,"  202. 


326  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

stimulus  "will  cut."  On  the  other  hand,  common  sense 
declares  that  when  we  see  the  razor  we  get  an  idea  of 
objective  thinness  and  hardness  of  edge,  glitter,  form, 
and  relation  of  parts,  and  that  this  same  idea  of  the 
objective  razor  may  be  had  by  a  frightened  negro  shrink- 
ing from  the  razor  as  a  weapon,  by  a  barber  reaching  for 
it  as  a  tool,  or  by  a  hardware  merchant  bargaining  for  it 
to  sell  at  profit. 

In  response  to  this  the  pragmatist  demands:  "Since 
all  that  is  in  consciousness  is  consciousness,  how  do  you 
get  any  hold  upon  such  qualities  as  glitter  and  form  as 
facts  existing  objectively — that  is,  outside  of  conscious- 
ness?" And  common  sense  replies:  "We  do  not  under- 
stand how  any  more  than  we  understand  the  ultimate 
nature  of  causation  in  any  of  its  other  manifestations. 
We  are  so  constituted  by  nature  that  we  are  unable  to 
explain  how  we  get  ideas  of  objective  qualities.  But  we 
are  so  constituted  that  we  do  get  these  ideas.  And  we 
will  not  throw  away  what  nature  has  given  us  because 
she  has  not  given  us  more." 

The  pragmatist  is  forced  to  say,  and  he  does  say  with 
emphasis,  that  the  razor  which  the  frightened  negro  gets 
is  "will  cut,"  the  razor  which  the  barber  gets  is  "can 
shave  with  it,"  and  the  razor  which  the  merchant  gets  is 
"can  sell  it  with  a  profit,"  and  that  the  fly  crawling 
over  it  doubtless  gets  still  another  razor,  and  if  the  mer- 
chant first  looked  at  the  razor  with  clouded  spectacles 
and  then  wiped  his  glasses,  he  thereupon  got  another 
razor  still,  for  the  razor  "functioned"  differently  after 
the  lenses  were  clear.  But  common  sense  says  that  it  was 
one  razor  all  the  time,  and  the  negro,  barber,  merchant, 
and  fly  functioned  differently  with  reference  to  the  razor, 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       327 

received  from  it  different  stimulations  to  conduct,  and 
may  have  received  somewhat  different  ideas  of  its  quali- 
ties according  to  the  character  of  their  own  organisms 
and  whether  their  lenses  were  clear  or  not. 

There  are  three  important  conceptions  of  the  problem 
of  relationship  between  ideas  and  objects:  First,  the 
idealist  says  there  is  no  such  problem,  for  no  objects 
exist  as  distinguishable  from  ideas.  Second,  the  prag- 
matist  says  there  is  no  such  problem,  for  there  are  no 
ideas  of  perception  distinguishable  from  the  functioning 
of  objects.  In  looking  at  the  razor  I  do  not  have  an  idea 
of  the  razor,  I  have  the  razor  functioning  as  a  stimulus 
to  behavior.  The  consciousness  is  no  more  mine  than 
it  is  the  razor's.  When  my  back  is  toward  a  tree  I  can 
have  an  idea  of  the  tree,  but  when  I  turn  and  look  at  the 
tree  the  idea  of  the  tree  becomes  nonexistent  and  I  have 
the  tree,  or  rather  I  have  one  side  of  the  tree,  I  may  still 
have  an  idea  of  the  other  side  of  it.  But  there  shall  be 
no  idea  when  I  am  looking  at  the  tree,  for  I  cannot  prove 
correspondence  between  idea  and  object  and  I  must  trust 
my  knowledge.  Third,  common  sense  admits  that 
there  is  a  problem.  It  regards  the  idea  as  an  item  in  the 
life  process  of  the  observer.  Just  how  or  how  far  it  cor- 
responds to  the  object  common  sense  does  not  know.  But 
it  regards  as  real  both  the  observer  in  whose  life  the  idea 
is  an  event,  and  the  object  by  which  the  organism  of 
the  observer  is  so  affected  that  this  event  occurs. 

Whether  in  perception,  or  in  memory,  imagination  and 
dreams,  we  do  not  usually  think  of  the  idea  of  a  tree  and 
of  a  tree,  but  only  of  a  tree,  either  vividly  as  in  percep- 
tion or  usually  less  vividly  in  memory,  imagination  or 
dreams.  But  since  in  memory,  imagination  and  dreams 


328  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

we  can  see  a  tree  when  there  is  no  tree,  and  since  in  per- 
ception we  may  see  it  either  dimly  and  distantly  or  clear 
and  close,  and  since  experience  convinces  us  that  the  tree 
exists  both  before  we  begin  to  see  it  and  afterward,  there- 
fore common  sense  is  everywhere  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  existence  of  the  tree  and  the  seeing  of  the  tree 
are  two  facts,  not  one.  A  fact  unmistakable  to  common 
sense  is  the  presence  of  subject  and  predicate:  "I  see  the 
tree."  Every  language  of  "nature  men"  or  "culture  men" 
proclaims  this  fundamental  dualism.  The  "nature  man" 
may  have  a  crude  notion  of  the  relation  between  himself 
and  the  objects  which  he  perceives  but  he  is  sure  of  both. 
His  sophisticated  offspring  may  say:  "My  life  is  a  series 
of  events  including  ideas  and  feelings,  and  it  is  part  of  a 
vaster  process  of  nature  all  the  rest  of  which  I  call  my 
environment.  My  survival  depends  upon  correlation  be- 
tween the  process  which  I  am  and  the  vaster  process 
of  nature."  Like  the  nature  man,  he  still  speaks,  and  he 
still  acts — or  he  could  not  survive — upon  the  simple  for- 
mula: "I  see  the  tree,  I  chop  down  the  tree.  I  build  a 
house  of  the  tree.  I  go  in  at  the  door." 

The  pragmatist  does  not  doubt  that  trees  and  razors 
are  as  real  as  human  organisms.  "The  object  with  its 
power  to  produce  effects  is  assumed."  11  "To  attain  per- 
fect clearness  in  our  thoughts  of  an  object"  (James)  is 
the  purpose.  "The  start  is  from  objects  (italics 
Dewey's)  already  empirically  given  as  presented,  existen- 
tially  vouched  for."  If  it  is  thus  assumed  that  objects 
exist  and  can  "produce  effects'*  in  the  life  of  an  organism 
which  are  "pointings"  toward  future  activity  of  that 

"John  Dewey,  Journal  of  Philosophy,  Psychology,  and  Scientific 
Methods,  v.  88. 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       329 

organism,  why  is  it  less  justifiable  to  assume,  as  common 
sense  does,  that  objects  can  produce  effects  in  the  life  of 
the  organism  which  are  pointings  toward  the  objects 
which  produce  those  effects.  There  is  no  less  of  assump- 
tion and  ultimately  no  less  of  metaphysical  difficulty  in  the 
statement  of  the  pragmatist  than  in  the  frank  statement 
that  ideas  and  feelings  exist  as  a  highly  peculiar  type  of 
events  in  the  life  of  highly  constituted  organisms,  which 
are  occasioned  by  and  have  a  certain  correspondence  to 
objects  external  to  the  life  of  the  organism. 

The  fact  that  consciousness  is  a  functioning  of  the 
living  organism  and  not  of  the  object  nor  even  a  joint 
functioning  of  the  organism  and  the  object,  is  well  illus- 
trated by  the  countless  instances,  of  fancy,  memory, 
hope  and  the  like,  in  which  there  is  no  actual  object. 

The  pragmatist' s  definition  of  consciousness  does  not 
apply  to  ideas  of  our  own  behavior  and  the  behavior  of 
other  persons,  unless  we  admit  that  an  idea  of  past 
behavior  is  nothing  but  "a  pointing"  toward  other  and 
future  behavior.  It  does  not  apply  to  feelings  unless  we 
admit  that  feelings  have  no  value  save  as  incitants  or 
deterrents  to  behavior.  It  does  not  apply  to  ideas  of 
objects  unless  we  admit  that  there  is  no  consent  of  the 
competent  but  that  objects  can  actually  vary  for  each  dif- 
ferent observer  and  because  of  a  change  in  the  same 
observer.  In  place  of  the  description  of  the  facts  which 
experience  renders  familiar  to  every  normal  human  being 
the  pragmatist's  definition  of  consciousness  offers  a  de- 
scription which  omits  part  of  the  facts  and  presents  the 
others  in  a  fantastic  and  unrecognizable  form.  Its  aim  is 
to  give  us  a  firm  grasp  upon  objects,  and  it  offers  us  ob- 
jects that  "function"  differently  for  different  observers  and 


330  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

for  the  same  observer  with  clear  and  clouded  spectacles, 
our  knowledge  of  which  is  only  a  pointing  to  our  own 
future  behavior,  future  objects  which  have  a  quality  of 
pastness,  and  future  possibilities  which  function  as  pres- 
ent actualities.  This  is  different  from  subjective  idealism 
but  wherein  is  it  more  consistent  with  itself,  more  con- 
gruous with  the  facts  of  experience  or  more  congenial 
to  the  nature  of  the  human  mind? 

While  common  sense  simply  states  the  facts  of  expe- 
rience and  admits  that  there  is  a  metaphysical  problem 
involved  which  we  cannot  solve,  pragmatism  of  the  kind 
referred  to  tries  to  get  rid  of  the  metaphysical  problem 
by  distorting  the  facts  of  experience.  It  strains 
toward  a  definition  of  consciousness  which  is  a  denial  of 
consciousness  as  a  particular  kind  of  event  in  the  life  of 
the  organism  distinguishable  from  all  of  its  other  func- 
tional on-going  by  qualities  which  involve  metaphysical 
difficulty.  It  practically  omits  the  fact  of  consciousness 
from  its  definition  of  consciousness.  It  emphasizes  the 
object  which  it  assumes  to  exist  while  denying  that  we 
have  any  perceptual  idea  of  the  object.  And  it  emphasizes 
the  future  functioning  of  the  beholder's  organism,  but 
thins  down  the  present  event  in  the  life  of  the  organism 
into  a  "functioning  of  possible  future  behavior  as  a  pres- 
ent existence."  That  present  event  in  the  life  of  the  or- 
ganism cannot  be  so  got  rid  of.  It  is  feeling  (which  the 
definition  of  the  pragmatist  slurs  over  or  omits  entirely) 
and  it  is  idea  of.  It  may  be  idea  of  the  future  function- 
ing of  the  organism,  or  of  its  past  functioning,  or  of  the 
activity  of  other  organisms,  or  of  objects  that  have  no 
part  in  biological  functioning,  like  a  stone,  a  chair,  or 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       331 

a  razor,  and  which  are  in  that  sense  external  to  the  event 
of  consciousness  but  causes  of  it. 

The  common  sense  view  makes  no  assumption  as  to 
any  "mind-stuff"  which  has  "states/1  It  says  nothing 
about  what  "has"  ideas  and  feelings.  It  no  more  adopts 
the  theory  of  mental  states  than  the  child  or  the  savage 
who  says,  "I  see,"  adopts  the  wave  theory  of  light  or  any 
other  theory  of  the  physics  of  vision.  It  says  nothing 
about  what  is  behind  ideas  and  feelings.  It  simply 
acknowledges  that  ideas  and  feelings  are  and  gives  them 
a  generic  name.  All  there  is  in  consciousness  is  ideas 
and  feelings;  all  there  is  of  consciousness  is  ideas  and 
feelings.  And  often  there  is  no  idea  of  future  reference. 
There  is,  however,  in  every  idea,  as  in  every  item  of  the 
life  process,  at  least  in  an  incipient  degree  the  kind  of 
adjustment  the  completed  function  purpose  or  raison 
d'etre  of  which  is  the  control  of  conduct.  The  function 
of  all  consciousness  is  to  eventuate  in  will.  And  yet 
there  is  a  great  deal  of  consciousness  that  does  not 
eventuate  in  will.  Consciousness  always  is  the  kind  of 
thing  that  might  cumulate  and  culminate  into  action  with 
reference  to  future  results.  But  it  does  not  always  do  so, 
any  more  than  the  watering  of  the  mouth  at  sight  of  food 
always  culminates  in  swallowing  and  digestion. 

To  say  that  my  idea  of  a  razor's  edge  is  not  an  idea 
of  objective  thinness  and  firmness,  but  that  as  conscious- 
ness my  idea  is  incipient  preparation  to  cut  or  to  prevent 
being  cut,  is  to  contradict  my  consciousness.  Yet  the 
physical  activity  underlying  consciousness  is  always  of 
the  kind  which  may  eventuate  in  overt  action.  What  we 
have  to  do  is  to  keep  in  mind  the  truth  that  consciousness, 
like  every  part  of  the  process  of  life,  is  functional,  with- 


332  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

out  excluding  from  our  minds  the  truth  that  conscious- 
ness is  specifically  different  from  every  other  part  of  the 
process  of  life  in  that  it  is  feelings  and  ideas,  that  it  has 
an  actual  present  existence  as  an  event  in  the  process  of 
life,  and  that  in  it  all  the  meaning  of  life  inheres.  It  can- 
not be  too  clearly  recalled  to  mind  that  aside  from  its 
biological  function  as  a  guide  to  future  behavior,  con- 
sciousness, as  a  present  event,  contains  all  the  values  of 
human  existence.  To  say  that  consciousness  has  all  its 
meaning  with  reference  to  future  behavior  is  an  effort  to 
get  rid  of  consciousness.  That  would  be  race  suicide 
indeed. 

The  pragmatist's  effort  to  eliminate  ideas  of  objects, 
as  concomitant  with  but  distinct  from  the  objects  them- 
selves, compels  him  to  deny  the  existence  of  the  urge  ta 
know  as  a  distinct  propensity.  But  common  sense  and 
all  observation  insist  that  eyes  and  ears  are  instruments 
of  a  distinct  predisposition  with  a  definite  psychophysical 
mechanism  and  a  specific  emotional  value,  as  interest  and 
curiosity.  Moreover,  this  is  the  one  psychophysical  pre- 
disposition upon  which  in  the  evolution  of  man  nature 
has  chiefly  specialized.  In  him  it  has  become  complicated 
by  the  development  of  a  mass  of  free  nerve  cells  in  the 
brain  ready  to  be  connected  up  with  new  stimulations  and 
to  record  old  ones  so  that  look-and-listen  becomes  look- 
listen-and-explain.  In  discussing  instinct  in  an  earlier 
chapter  we  had  occasion  to  observe  that  feeling,  satis- 
faction, or  the  conscious  phase  of  an  instinct,  such  as 
eating  or  sex,  is  a  totally  different  thing  from  the  biolog- 
ical function  or  purpose  of  the  instinct,  although  the  satis- 
faction is  promotive  of  the  function.  The  like  is  as  true 
of  ideas  as  of  instinctive  feelings.  It  is  true  of  the  idea- 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       333 

getting  predisposition  as  of  every  instinct  that  it  has  both 
a  biological  and  a  psychological  aspect,  both  a  biological 
function  as  behavior  and  a  psychological  value.  To  define 
consciousness  in  the  terms  of  the  former  is  to  omit  con- 
sciousness. It  denies  the  essential  character  of  conscious- 
ness in  order  to  get  rid  of  the  metaphysical  difficulties 
involved.  It  is  better  to  accept  the  facts,  and  if  we  are 
unable  to  go  behind  them  with  metaphysical  explanation, 
then  it  is  better  to  stop  with  them. 

We  have  been  insisting  in  the  same  breath  that  con- 
sciousness cannot  be  defined  by  its  relation  to  behavior 
and  that  it  has  a  relation  to  behavior.  It  seems,  to  say 
the  least,  highly  improbable  that  so  elaborately  developed 
and  prominent  a  fact  of  the  life  of  the  higher  animals 
should  be  a  mere  epiphenomenon,  riding  upon  a  succes- 
sion of  mechanistically  determined  behavioristic  adjust- 
ments and  having  no  practical  importance  as  affecting  be- 
havior. How  ideas  and  feelings  can  influence  the  process 
no  man  knows  any  more  than  any  one  knows  the  nature 
of  causation  in  general.  He  can  say  neither  "more  nor 
less  than  that,  for  observation,  ideas,  and  feelings — the 
facts  of  consciousness — are  events  which  are  true  links 
in  the  causal  chain,  caused  by  the  stimulating  environ- 
ment and  causing  reaction  upon  the  environment.  Hith- 
erto we  are  absolutely  incompetent  to  solve  the  metaphys- 
ical question  of  the  nature  of  reality,  material  or  psychic, 
or  of  the  nature  of  causation.  We  are  as  far  from  ma- 
terialism on  the  one  hand  as  from  idealism  or  the  doc- 
trine of  mental  states  on  the  other,  and  as  to  how  acts  of 
consciousness  and  neuroses  and  mountains  and  skies  can 
causally  affect  each  other  we  need  not  profess  to  know. 


334  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

THE  REAL  AND  THE  TRUE 

It  is  indeed  conceivable  that  consciousness  is  as  bloom 
is  to  the  peach  or  fragrance  to  the  flower — a  kind  of 
efflorescence  upon  the  chemico-physical  processes  of  neu- 
roses and  glandular  perturbation,  and  that  it  has  no  causal 
significance.  This  seems  likely  enough  when  we  consider 
that  there  are  many  responses  that  may  go  on  either  with 
or  without  this  accompaniment  of  consciousness,  and  that 
even  difficult  processes  of  reasoning  sometimes  appear  to 
have  been  carried  on  in  sleep.  If  this  be  the  true  view 
then  this  bloom  upon  the  process  of  organic  life  is  all  that 
gives  life  value  to  the  living  being.  Then  "reasonable" 
ideas  are  responses  adjusted  to  the  entire  situation  in  so 
far  as  it  effectively  relates  itself  to  the  organism ;  and  free 
action  is  muscular  completion  of  such  response — a  result- 
ant of  all  the  component  stimulations,  and  not  a  distorted 
and  fractional  response.  And  then  when  we  say  that 
ideas  are  causal  links  between  the  tree  and  my  chopping 
the  tree,  we  practice  a  kind  of  metonomy,  naming  the 
intervening  organic  process  by  its  efflorescence  as  con- 
sciousness. 

But  if  consciousness,  as  feeling,  may  roughly  be  de- 
scribed as  an  organic  response  blossoming  into  self- 
knowledge,  ideas,  strangely  enough,  are  not  organic  re- 
sponse blossoming  into  ^//-knowledge,  but  into  knowl- 
edge of  its  supposed  cause.  Perhaps  after  all  this  is 
hardly  more  wonderful,  and  no  more  inexplicable,  than 
that  the  chemico-physical  process  that  underlies  feeling 
should  blossom  into  self -consciousness.  But  it  is  differ- 
ent— so  different  that  it  is  in  consciousness  as  ideas  that 
problems  inhere  which  prompt  some  of  the  cleverest  of 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       335 

men  to  plan  a  way  of  escape  by  inventing  a  definition  of 
consciousness  which  leaves  feeling  out  of  the  perspective. 

Whether  ideas  are  a  causally  effective  part  of  the 
process  "I  see  the  tree  and  cut  it  down,"  or  only  a  func- 
tionally meaningless  obbligato  to  the  biological  process, 
ideas  are  at  least  phenomena,  or  nothing  is.  And  differ- 
ent as  they  are  from  all  material  things,  they  proclaim 
themselves  to  be  related  to  material  things,  so  that  com- 
mon sense  assures  us  that  we  have  an  idea  of  the  tree. 
The  difficulty,  to  escape  from  which  is  the  chief  motive 
of  the  pragmatist's  fantastic  definition  of  consciousness, 
lies  in  the  question,  If  all  there  is  in  consciousness  is  con- 
sciousness, how  can  I  get  or  prove  that  I  have  any  knowl- 
edge of  trees  and  other  material  objects? 

A  common  sense  view  of  life,  or  a  natural  science 
view,  which  is  the  same  thing,  aims  to  see  "the  facts/' 
"reality,"  "the  truth."  These  phrases  imply  the  distinc- 
tion between  "subjective"  ideas  which  may  or  may  not 
be  true,  and  "external"  or  "objective"  realities  or  facts. 
And  by  truth  is  meant  some  sort  of  dependable  corre- 
spondence between  ideas  and  facts.  Of  course,  there  is  a 
sense  in  which  every  idea  is  a  fact,  but  it  is  to  some  one 
a  "subjective"  fact,  and  "truth,"  we  say,  is  correspond- 
ence between  subjective  facts  (ideas)  and  objective  facts. 

Now  it  is  obvious  that  our  ideas  do  not  correspond 
entirely  with  objective  facts.  My  idea  of  an  idea  that 
I  had  yesterday  or  of  my  neighbor's  idea  may  approach 
to  such  complete  correspondence,  but  there  is  no  other 
kind  of  objective  fact  that  corresponds  with  any  com- 
pleteness to  an  idea  of  it.  An  idea  of  a  table  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  a  table.  You  cannot  put  a  book  on 
the  idea  of  a  table,  any  more  than  you  can  make  pur- 


336  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

chases  with  an  idea  of  a  million  dollars,  or  mount  the 
idea  of  a  horse  and  ride  away  on  it. 

There  is,  nevertheless,  a  practical  correspondence  be- 
tween ideas  and  objective  facts,  and  this  practical  cor- 
respondence is  what  we  call  truth.  What  is  meant  by 
such  practical  correspondence  is  this:  First,  true  ideas 
are  conditioned  by  objective  facts.  My  idea  of  a  horse 
outside  the  window  is  conditioned  by  something  that  is 
not  a  part  of  my  idea.  When  we  say  an  idea  is  true,  we 
mean  in  the  first  place  then  that  the  idea  is  so  conditioned 
either  directly  as  in  perception,  or  indirectly  as  in  infer- 
ence. The  medium  through  which  this  conditioning  takes 
place  is  my  own  neurosis.  Second,  very  often,  often 
enough  to  demonstrate  the  existence  of  this  second  phase 
of  their  correspondence  with  the  external  world,  true 
ideas  set  going  in  us  further  responses  of  our  organisms 
which  result  in  other  ideas,  which  at  the  time  of  action 
were  anticipated.  Thus,  the  idea  of  a  horse  makes  me 
walk  forward,  seize  his  mane,  leap  on  his  back,  and  ride 
away,  and  the  whole  process  is  accompanied  by  a  series 
of  anticipated  ideas,  which  fact  leads  me  to  say  that  the 
original  idea  of  a  horse  standing  there  was  true. 

If  the  first  of  these  two  correspondences :  object-neu- 
rosis-idea is  symbolized  by  o  n  i,  and  the  second  muscular 
response-changed  objective  situation-anticipated  ideas  is 
symbolized  by  m  o'  i',  the  whole  process  may  be  repre- 
sented thus :  o  n  V  m  o'  V.  We  have  in  consciousness  only 
i  and  i'  and  have  no  direct  or  immediate  knowledge  of 
the  external  world,12  o  o',  and  therefore  can  have  no 

"  Pragmatists  like  Professor  Dewey  and  Professor  Bode  would 
object  to  this  word  "external."  This  externality  of  objects  to 
consciousness  is  precisely  what  they  deny.  For  this  purpose  they 
teach  that  consciousness  is  a  process  participated  in  by  both  the 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       337 

direct  assurance  of  any  correspondence  between  o  and  i, 
or  between  o'  and  i'.  But  the  original  idea  (i)  included 
the  notion  that  it  corresponded  to  an  external  object  (o) 
and  passed  directly  into  an  anticipation  of  (i'),  that  is, 
it  passed  into  an  anticipation  of  changes  in  ideas  cor- 
responding to  supposed  changes  in  the  external  condition 
as  altered  by  the  muscular  movements  which  were 
prompted  by  the  original  idea.  The  correspondence  be- 
tween the  anticipation  and  the  realization  establishes  in 
consciousness  a  confidence  in  the  trustworthiness  of  the 
process.  If  the  anticipation,  which  was  based  upon  a 
supposed  knowledge  of  the  objective  situation,  is  ful- 
filled by  the  ideas  which  come  to  us  in  the  changed  situa- 
tion after  we  have  acted  upon  it,  we  conclude  that  the 
original  idea  (i)  possessed  that  correspondence  with  the 
original  situation  (o)  and  that  the  new  ideas  (i')  which 
came  with  the  changing  of  the  situation  by  our  action, 
possessed  that  correspondence  with  the  new  situation 
(o')  which  we  call  the  truth  of  those  ideas.  If  we  are 
not  justified  in  this  confidence,  then  our  faculties  are  so 
deceptive  that  we  are  not  justified  in  any  confidence  what- 
ever and  may  as  well  give  up  the  use  of  our  faculties  on 
the  ground  that  they  are  incapable  of  anything  but  decep- 
tion. Our  daily  experience  carries  the  proportion 
o  :  i  : :  o'  :  i'  through  every  conceivable  permutation  and 
it  continually  works  out  as  if  the  proportion  were  true. 
Our  life  is  a  continual  repetition  of  this  experiment,  and 

functioning  object,  say  a  chair,  and  the  "functioning"  organism. 
But  common  sense  regards  consciousness  as  an  event  in  the  life  of 
the  organism  and  not  as  an  event  in  the  "functioning"  of  the  chair. 
To  common  sense  the  chair  only  occasions  the  functioning  of  the 
organism,  and  is  external  to  this  functioning,  that  is,  to  conscious- 
ness, as  it  is  external  to  the  organism. 


338  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

a  constant  renewal  and  corrobo ration  of  our  confidence 
in  the  trustworthiness  of  its  result.  Everything  works 
out  as  if  this  notion  of  correspondence  between  ideas  and 
objects  were  justified.  Acting  on  that  confidence,  we 
survive  and  prosper;  ignoring  it,  we  should  perish.  The 
idea  of  such  correspondence  is  the  idea  of  truth. 

There  is,  however,  no  basis  for  a  claim  that  this  cor- 
respondence between  objects  and  ideas  is  complete.  It 
may  be  that  an  organism  of  quite  different  constitution 
from  ours,  under  the  same  conditions,  might  get  an  idea 
of  the  horse  quite  different  from  ours,  yet  for  the  pur- 
poses of  such  an  organism,  equally  true.  Even  some 
individuals  of  our  own  species,  by  a  long  process  of 
observation  and  inference,  have  concluded  that  what  I 
call  the  brownness  of  the  horse  is  in  reality  an  effect  pro- 
duced by  reaction  between  the  vibrations  of  ether  and 
my  organism,  and  represents  nothing  that  exists  outside 
of  me,  though  it  does  correspond  to  the  external  reality 
in  the  practical  way  described.  I  was  enabled  to  pick 
out  my  horse  by  this  idea  of  brownness.  It  may  be  that 
to  a  being  of  another  order  what  I  call  mane,  tail,  and 
legs  would  appear  as  a  system  of  active  ions.  It  may  be 
that  metaphysical  concepts  utterly  beyond  us  and  for 
which  it  is  folly  for  us  to  look,  would  be  the  percepts  of 
some  higher  being.  As  a  monarch  butterfly,  flitting  over 
a  pasture,  sees  the  milkweeds  and  settles  upon  one  and 
lays  its  eggs  and  its  larvae  find  their  congenial  food, 
while  the  hawk,  flying  over  the  same  pasture,  does  not 
•distinguish  the  milkweed,  but  sees  the  field  mouse  running 
between  the  stalks,  and  the  field  mouse  sees  what  neither 
the  hawk  nor  the  butterfly  perceives,  and  no  one  of  the 
three  has  an  idea  of  that  pasture  which  begins  to  rep- 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       339 

resent  the  total  actuality,  so  we,  in  the  presence  of  objec- 
tive stimulations,  get  an  experience,  and  are  not  sure  of 
any  actual  correspondence  between  our  experience  and 
the  objective  fact,  save  the  practical  correspondence 
which  alone  is  our  concern. 

This,  however,  does  not  mean  solipsism,  the  doctrine 
that  we  are  shut  up  in  our  own  minds  and  have  no  reli- 
able relations  with  the  general  process  of  nature.  It  is 
the  very  nature  of  an  idea  to  be  the  idea  of  something. 
Solipsism  means  that  this  general  declaration  of  con- 
sciousness is  an  illusion,  and  that  all  our  ideas  are  false 
except  perhaps  our  ideas  of  our  own  ideas.  If  we  reject 
the  idea  that  consciousness  is  as  much  a  function  of  the 
object  perceived  (say  a  chair)  as  of  the  brain,  that  con- 
sciousness is  the  chair  functioning,  and  that  in  conscious- 
ness we  have  the  object  and  not  an  idea  of  the  object, 
then  we  have  to  choose  either  solipsism,  that  is  the  notion 
that  our  consciousness  in  assuring  us  that  we  have  knowl- 
edge of  external  things  is  a  cheat,  or  else  fall  back  upon 
the  common  sense  view  that  a  correspondence  between 
our  ideas  of  objects  and  the  objects  themselves  exists. 
For  the  solipsistic  notion  there  is  not  a  scintilla  of  proof. 
For  the  view  of  common  sense — the  notion  that  the  sup- 
posed correspondence  is  real — we  have,  to  begin  with, 
this  support :  That  our  ideas  succeed  each  other  just  as 
they  would  if  the  supposed  correspondence  were  real; 
that  when  we  go  to  mount  a  horse  we  have  the  experience 
of  mounting  him ;  that  when  we  strike  at  the  wall  as  if 
our  experience  of  sight  reported  an  actual  wall  we  get 
the  experience  of  a  bruised  hand;  that  when  we  shoot  a 
rabbit  as  if  our  idea  corresponded  to  a  real  rabbit,  we 
then  and  not  before  can  get  the  experience  of  eating 


340  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

the  rabbit;  that  when  we  act  upon  our  ideas  as  if  they 
were  reliable  evidence  of  an  external  world,  our  antici- 
pations are  fulfilled.  If  this  does  not  exactly  prove  the 
truth  of  our  notion  that  ideas  correspond  with  objectiv- 
ity, it  justifies  us  in  acting  precisely  as  we  should  if  we 
knew  they  did.  If  those  items  in  our  life  process  which 
we  call  ideas  occasion  motor  responses  which  fit  into  the 
system  of  existence,  so  as  to  secure  the  survival  of  our 
organisms  and  the  realization  of  anticipated  ideas  and 
feelings,  then  they  are  true  in  the  only  sense  in  which  we 
have  any  concern  to  seek  for  truth. 

In  the  second  place,  the  fact  that  the  qualities  of  sen- 
sation, color,  sound,  taste,  smell,  or  feeling  exist  only  for 
consciousness  and  correspond  to  external  causes  without 
copying  those  causes,  does  not  of  necessity  cast  the  same 
kind  of  doubt  upon  the  correctness  of  our  ideas  of  the 
fundamental  relations  of  time,  space,  and  causation. 
These  ideas  may  not  copy  the  realities;  they  may  not 
tell  us  all  about  the  realities, — they  certainly  do  not  tell 
us  all  about  the  realities  of  causation, — but  the  corre- 
spondence between  the  ideas  and  the  realities  is  of  a  very 
real  and  intimate  kind.  If  my  arrow  hits  the  rabbit, 
I  am  justified  in  believing  that  my  ideas  of  direction  and 
distance — that  is,  of  space — correspond  accurately  with 
the  facts.  Common  sense  does  not  doubt  that  the  rela- 
tions of  time,  space,  and  causation  exist  whether  they 
are  observed  or  not,  and  the  ideas  of  these  relations  are 
probably  the  same  to  a  man,  a  hawk,  or  a  rattlesnake. 
This  is  not  true  of  sensations.  Very  likely  the  rabbit 
does  not  taste  to  me  as  it  would  to  a  rattlesnake,  and 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  taste  independent  of  a  sensitive 
organism  but  only  that  which  will  cause  the  experience  of 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       341 

taste  in  a  sensitive  organism.  It  is  necessary  for  the 
practical  success  of  our  conduct  that  our  ideas  of  time, 
space,  and  causation  should  correspond  to  the  objective 
facts,  and  the  fact  of  our  success  is  the  only  kind  of  evi- 
dence we  need  or  are  capable  of  receiving  in  support  of 
the  actual  existence  of  such  correspondence.  But  that 
such  ideas  as  those  of  color  and  taste  should  copy  any- 
thing objective,  our  success  neither  requires  nor  proves. 
Of  the  true  correspondence  between  our  ideas  and  the 
essential  relations  of  time,  space,  and  causation  we  have 
all  the  evidence  conceivable  and  no  evidence  to  the  con- 
trary. All  the  alleged  contrary  evidence  amounts  only  to 
showing  that  we  are  not  infallible.  A  sphere  may  look 
in  perspective  like  a  disk  and  a  cube  like  a  figure  of 
oblique  lines.  But  this  merely  means  that  a  single  obser- 
vation by  a  single  sense  may  not  give  us  adequate  expe- 
rience. Adequate  observation  organizes  the  facts  of 
perspective  into  an  intelligible  system  and  a  corroboration 
of  the  accuracy  of  our  ideas  of  space. 

If,  in  accordance  with  the  theory  of  relativity,  the 
spacial,  temporal,  and  even  causal  relations  that  we  know 
are  only  the  simpler  aspect  of  a  more  complex  system  of 
interrelationships,  that  need  not  affect  the  truth  of  com- 
mon sense  knowledge  so  far  as  it  goes.  Our  knowledge 
may  sometime  exceed  its  present  bounds.  We  need  not 
be,  cannot  be,  dogmatic  agnostics,  in  the  sense  of  setting 
definite  limits  to  the  possibility  of  human  knowledge. 
Next  to  the  unspeakable  assumption  that  this  physiolog- 
ical apparatus  of  nerve  cells  enables  us  to  fathom  the 
ultimate  is  the  other  assumption  that  we  can  already  set 
definite  boundaries  to  the  possibility  of  progress  in  human 
knowledge. 


342  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

PRAGMATISM 

This  acceptance  of  the  practical  test  as  the  basis  of 
confidence  in  our  knowledge  and  as  the  method  of  in- 
creasing our  knowledge,  and  acceptance  of  the  idea  that 
adjustment  of  our  organism  to  practical  behavior  is  the 
physiological  basis  and  primary  function  of  conscious- 
ness may  well  be  called  "pragmatism." 

This  is  obviously  as  far  as  possible  from  the  notion  that 
an  idea  is  true  if  the  emotions  which  it  awakens  are 
agreeable.  True  pragmatism13  is  testing  our  ideas  by 
their  power  to  elicit  behavior  which  fits  into  the  world 
so  as  to  elicit  from  the  world  an  anticipated  result. 

Common  sense  never  doubts  its  grip  upon  the  external 
world.  However  much  we  have  to  alter  our  notions 
about  the  external  world,  common  sense  and  science, 
which  is  only  an  extensive  and  patient  application  of  the 
method  of  common  sense,  never  doubt  that  our  notions 
about  the  external  world  are  derived  from  the  external 
world  by  means  of  the  activity  of  an  apparatus  for  know- 
ing with  which  nature  has  endowed  us.  The  doubt  arises 
only  when  we  realize  that  we  cannot  prove  or  explain  the 
actuality  of  our  grip  upon  the  external  world. 

And  science  and  common  sense  go  right  on  admitting 
our  inability  to  prove  the  reality  of  our  knowledge  of  the 
external  world,  but  go  on  using  this  knowledge  just  the 
same.  We  must  use  it  or  perish.  It  is  the  only  way  we 
can  live,  and  using  this  supposed  knowledge  of  the  exter- 

"This,  of  course,  is  venturing  an  opinion  as  to  what  the  word 
"pragmatism"  should  mean,  not  an  historical  statement  of  what 
it  has  meant  as  employed  by  some. 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       343 

nal  world  as  if  it  were  real  knowledge,  we  find  that  it 
works  as  if  it  were  real  knowledge. 

May  one  not  be  pardoned  for  doubting  whether  the 
fantastic  definition  of  consciousness  which  obscures  or 
denies  its  essential  character,  as  that  character  is  famil- 
iarly known  to  every  conscious  being,  is  any  permanent 
or  essential  part  of  true  pragmatism?  Is  not  pragmatism 
ultimately  to  be  the  frank  adoption  of  the  verdict  of 
common  sense  and  the  equally  frank  abandonment  of  the 
fruitless  search  for  a  philosophical  omniscience  that  is 
not  possible  to  intelligences  which  function  only  within 
the  limit  set  by  a  network  of  nerve  cells  in  a  bony  box, 
evolved  so  far,  and  only  so  far  as  their  functioning 
contributes  to  the  survival  of  the  organism  of  which  this 
box  of  brains  is  a  part  ? 

The  limited  knowledge  which  we  now  have  leaves  open 
a  possible  doubt  whether  ideas  are  causal  factors  neces- 
sary to  the  biological  process  of  behavior,  or  whether  all 
behavior  might  just  as  well  proceed  as  that  of  a  sleep- 
walker does,  with  no  consciousness  whatever,  so  that  con- 
sciousness is  a  mere  work  of  supererogation,  a  surplus 
dividend,  a  gift  of  the  gods,  making  the  process  of  life  a 
thing  of  interest  and  value  to  the  living  being.  As  has 
been  remarked  above,  we  practice  metonomy  when  we  say 
an  idea  causes  our  action,  naming  a  complex  process 
which  includes  the  neuroses  by  that  aspect  of  the  process 
which  we  call  our  consciousness.  We  may  prefer  to  think 
that  the  idea  is  an  essential  link  in  the  causal  process.  We 
may  believe  ourselves  justified  in  refusing  to  believe  that 
consciousness  is  a  glaring  exception  to  what  appears  to 
be  an  otherwise  universal  law  of  nature — that  nothing  is 
evolved  in  nature  which  is  not  thereafter  a  causal  factor 


344  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

in  nature's  process.  But  we  are  not  prepared  to  dogma- 
tize. And,  after  all,  what  practical  difference  does  it 
make? 

Scientific  determinism  is  not  materialistic.  It  is  only 
by  adding  a  certain  type  of  metaphysics  to  observation 
that  we  arrive  at  materialism.  Sociology,  as  well  as  all 
science  and  practical  life,  has  nothing  to  do  with  any 
metaphysical  theory  of  causation  or  of  being.  It  is  naive 
in  the  sense  in  which  all  common  sense  and  all  science  are 
naive;  namely,  that  it  trusts  human  faculties  to  tell  the 
truth  as  truth  was  just  defined. 

Indeed  common  sense  is  infinitely  far  from  being 
materialistic.  It  not  only  admits  the  equal  reality  of  the 
physical  and  the  psychic,  but  it  goes  further  and  admits 
that  all  of  the  ultimate  values  discoverable  by  human  in- 
telligence inhere  in  the  psychic  realities,  that  from  the 
point  of  view  of  human  interest  all  material  things  what- 
soever have  only  derivative  and  secondary  value  because, 
and  in  so  far  as,  they  condition  the  realization  of  good 
human  experiences. 

Most  of  the  difficulties  of  metaphysics  are  bred  by 
metaphysics.  They  are  inseparable  from  any  attempt  to 
leap  or  fly  across  gulfs  of  ignorance  which  common  sense 
has  done  nothing  to  bridge.  Though  it  is  impossible  to 
define  the  limits  of  our  possible  knowledge,  it  is  reason- 
ably certain  that  there  are  limits  beyond  which  we  cannot 
go.  The  struggle  to  go  beyond  the  boundaries  of  possible 
knowledge  confuses  our  knowledge  within  those  bounda- 
ries. As  in  practical  activity  the  feeling  that  this  ought 
to  be  a  perfect  world  for  human  beings,  exactly  adapted 
to  our  own  nature,  makes  men  repine  instead  of  throwing 
themselves  with  zest  into  the  struggle  to  wrest  from 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       345 

nature  such  service  to  man  as  we  can  compel,  so  also  in 
intellectual  activity  the  feeling  that  we  ought  to  be  able 
to  know  that  which  lies  beyond  the  compass  of  our 
powers  and  our  concerns  makes  us  mystified  and  uncer- 
tain about  those  aspects  of  the  world  which  our  faculties 
present. 

The  wallowing  of  epistemology  never  arrived  at  any 
positive  conclusion,  but  it  seems  able  to  negative  any  con- 
clusion whatsoever.  Of  all  the  futile  exercises  of  great 
intelligence,  the  most  preposterous  is  that  by  which  men 
have  tried  to  use  their  faculties  to  test  their  faculties.  It 
assumes  that  our  mental  processes  are  valid  enough  to 
prove  or  disprove  their  own  validity.  They  are  valid 
enough  to  disprove  their  own  omniscience.  But  these 
limited  faculties  of  ours  present  a  workable  view  of  so 
much  of  reality  as  it  concerns  us  to  know.  And  our 
business  is  to  work  it,  not  to  try  to  substitute  for  it 
another  devised  more  to  our  liking. 

All  of  the  foregoing  chapters,  and  all  of  science,  rest 
upon  the  assumption  that  within  limits  we  can  know. 
We  cannot  prove  that  we  know,  for  all  our  proof  depends 
upon  the  validity  of  that  very  reason,  the  validity  of 
which  was  to  be  proved.  If  our  reason  is  not  valid, 
then  all  that  seems  to  us  proof  of  its  validity  is  in  fact 
an  instance  of  its  deceitfulness.  To  accept  any  proof 
of  anything,  even  of  our  reason,  we  must  assume  the 
validity  of  our  reason.  The  epistemological  question  is 
one  that  must  be  begged.  The  very  attempt  to  construct 
an  epistemology  begs  the  epistemological  question.  It 
would  seem,  then,  that  epistemological  discussion  might 
as  well  be  laid  aside  once  for  all,  for  in  the  very  nature 


346  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

of  things,  it  is  an  attempt  to  lift  ourselves  by  our  own 
boot  straps,  and  cannot  get  us  anywhere. 

There  are  two  things  which  to  common  sense  are 
plain :  First,  that  if  we  assume  that  our  ideas  correspond 
to  objective  reality  in  the  practical  sense  above  defined, 
we  do  not  become  involved  in  any  inconsistencies  that  are 
apparent  to  our  faculties ;  and  second,  that  unless  we  act 
as  if  our  faculties  gave  us  true  knowledge,  we  cannot 
survive. 

Our  philosophical  difficulties  arise  because,  being  dis- 
satisfied with  the  facts  of  life  and  the  world,  as  they 
appear  to  common  sense,  we  have  assumed  our  own 
ability  by  speculation  to  get  out  of  the  world  which  our 
faculties  present.  But  cutting  off  the  vast  shadowland 
of  conflicting  speculative  uncertainties  and  betaking  our- 
selves to  minding  our  own  business  of  living  in  the  world 
as  presented  by  our  faculties  we  escape  our  artificial 
perplexities. 

Human  thought  has  been  an  alternation  of  two  proc- 
esses :14  one  by  which  man  constructs  a  thought  world 
in  which  he  can  live,  the  other  by  which  he  tears  it  down 
again.  Speculation  and  faith  build  man  a  home,  criti- 
cism tears  it  down  and  leaves  him  shelterless.  Practical 
necessity  prompts  the  construction,  demand  for  truth 
prompts  the  demolition.  Ideas  being  man's  prime  neces- 
sity and  necessity  being  the  mother  of  invention,  men 
and  women  have  conceived  beliefs  which  answer  their 
sense  of  need,  and  have  then  insisted  that  the  fact  that 
these  beliefs  do  answer  their  sense  of  need  is  sufficient 

**  Compare  W.  Durant,  Philosophy  and  the  Social  Problem,  ch.  I. 
New  York,  1917.  H.  M.  Kallen,  William  James  and  Henri  Bergson, 
ch.  I.  Chicago,  1914. 


SERENITY  AND  COMMON  SENSE       347 

evidence  that  they  are  true,  and  have  proclaimed  that 
faith  in  them  is  the  supreme  virtue.  Comparative  study 
of  social  evolution  makes  it  clear  that  there  is  hardly  any 
length  to  which  faith  so  formed  cannot  go  in  disregard- 
ing facts.  Practical  need  has  been  so  much  more  urgent 
than  the  critical  need  for  truth  that  we  have  built  our 
structure  of  opinion  and  comfortably  settled  ourselves  in 
it  before  the  voice  of  criticism  was  clearly  heard.  There- 
after it  was  a  strife  between  faith  and  truth.  In  this 
strife  faith  and  practical  necessity  have  in  general  had 
the  advantage.  But  the  occasional  triumph  of  criticism 
has  at  times  resulted  in  brief  periods  of  intellectual  and 
artistic  greatness,  followed  by  moral  and  social  ruin. 
Thus  for  a  little  while,  in  Greece,  the  mind  of  man  was 
free.  It  was  not  imbedded  in  any  stereotyped  tradition. 
This  gave  to  Greece  the  age  of  Pericles,  and  straightway 
it  plunged  Greece  into  the  age  of  Alcibiades.  What  we 
need  is  a  criticism  that  dispels  the  bugaboos  by  which 
man  has  been  scared  into  decency,  and  at  the  same  time 
lays  bare  the  foundations  of  natural  necessity  upon  which 
the  claims  of  decency  are  based.  After  each  triumph  of 
critical  truth,  and  each  partial  demolition  of  our  com- 
fortable abode  of  faith,  practical  faith  has  set  itself  to 
make  repairs.  Instead  of  starting  from  the  cleared  foun- 
dation of  solid  rock  with  criticism  as  a  fellow  worker,  it 
has  frantically  gathered  the  shattered  fragments  and  re- 
built upon  the  old  foundation.  The  savage  in  his  naivete 
may  dwell  permanently  in  his  ill-designed  beliefs,  but  the 
"culture  man/'  trained  to  critical  reflection,  tears  down 
with  one  hand  what  he  fain  would  build  up  with  the 
other,  and  the  habitable  structure  of  thought,  like  Penel- 
ope's web,  refuses  to  grow. 


348  SOCIOLOGY  AND  ETHICS 

Is  it  then  true  that  the  brain  is  a  biological  monstrosity 
so  fashioned  that  it  secures  physical  survival  only  as  a 
foundation  for  mental  misery,  and  are  the  facts  appre- 
hensible by  human  intelligence  so  unfit  for  man's  needs, 
and  the  world  so  unsuited  to  the  welfare  of  conscious 
beings,  or  else  man's  own  faculties  so  inadequate  and 
misleading,  that  we  must  choose  between  self-deception 
or  misery,  between  illusions  or  pessimism  and  despair? 
Or  does  the  whole  difficulty  lie  in  the  fact  that  we  have 
never  seriously  tried  to  live  in  the  world  of  common 
sense  ? 

We  shall  never  cease  to  be  distracted  and  life  will 
never  proceed  with  clear  guidance  and  full  power  till  we 
become  content  to  be  human  beings,  not  divinities,  and  to 
live  as  life  is  defined  for  us  by  the  nature  of  our  powers. 
But  when  once  we  accept  in  speculation  limitations  cor- 
responding to  those  which  we  are  forced  to  accept  in 
practice,  we  shall  find  that  every  value  of  human  expe- 
rience is  unabated,  that  the  values  of  both  good  and  evil 
which  are  at  stake  in  the  earthly  experience  of  human 
society  transcend  our  powers  of  estimate  and  call  us  with 
a  summons  the  urgency  and  inspiration  of  which  is  all 
that  we  can  endure.  We  have  only  to  throw  ourselves 
into  the  current  of  intelligent  cooperative  endeavor  for 
the  diminution  of  evil  and  for  the  realization  of  good, 
in  order  to  discover  the  true  dignity  and  the  poignant 
zest  of  life.  We  shall  find  our  serenity  in  common  sense. 


INDEX 


Abraham,  182 

Acquisition,  as  business  suc- 
cess, 122 

Activity,  contains  all  value, 
112 

Adaptation,  293 

Agnosticism,  15,  18,  68,  345 

Ahura-Mazda  and  Ahriman, 
211 

Alcibiades,  347 

Altruism,  233-240,  241,  280  et 
seq. 

American  Economic  Review, 
128 

American  Journal  of  Sod- 
ology,  34,  43>  109,  112,  161 

American  Sociological  So- 
ciety, Proceedings,  109,  128 

Angell,  J.  R.,  56,  57,  170 

Anger,  85,  90,  235,  250,  274 

Application  of  science,  28,  69, 
75,  209 

Appreciation,  161,  163,  169 

Asceticism,  264 

Attention,  98,  141 

Australian,  32,  242 

Balfour,  A.  J.,  7,  71 
Beauty,  80,  132,  242  et  seq. 
Behavior,   333,  343;  see  also 

Body  and  mind 
Bergson,  H.,  64,  72-75,  77 
Bernard,  L.  L.,  112 
Bernhardi,  F.  von,  268 


Bias,  37,  58,  65,  77,  79,  141, 

219,  253,  278,  285 
Bode,  B.  H.,  318,  321,  325,  336 
Body  and  mind,   50,  53,   103, 

129;  see  also  Behavior 
Bradley,  F.  H.,  53 
Business,  121,  122,  259-261 

Captain  of  industry,  123 
Categorical  imperative,  204 
Causation,   16,  40  et  seq.,  52 
Causeless  freedom,  40,  48,  69, 

72,  74,  80,  102,  219 
Causes  that  mold  society,  288; 

see  also  Social  forces  error 
Choice,  45 

Christ,  106,  157,  227 
Church,  in 
Commodities,     means,     never 

ends,  117  et  seq. 
Common    sense,    207,    313    et 

seq.}  $27,  33°  **  seq. 
Communication,  164,  166-171 
Comte,   Auguste,  27,  36,  216, 

218,  220,  288 
Conduct,  125 
Conformity,  262 
Confucius,  309 
Conscience,   182,   184   et  seq.t 

217 
Consciousness,  44,  47,  53  note, 

97,  315,  3i6  et  seq. 
Consensus   of  the   competent, 

161,  165,  326 


349 


350 


INDEX 


Conversion,  97,  99-101,  266 
Cooley,  C.  H.,  no 
Cooperation,  270  et  seq.,  274; 

see  also  Social  spirit 
Courage,  see  Cowardice 
Cowardice,  235,  237,  245 
Crime,  51,  89 
Criminal,  137 
Criticism,  347 
Cross,  23,  262,  284 
Crusoe,  Robinson,  117 
Curiosity,  294,  332 

Depravity,   249,  251,  302 

Description,  see  Communica- 
tion 

Desire  and  satisfaction,  see 
Satisfaction  and  desire 

Determinism,  74-76,  77-107 

Dewey,  J.,  328,  336 

Distribution  of  wealth,  theory, 
128 

Divine  right  of  kings,  78 

Dualism,  51,  326  et  seq.,  335 
et  seq. 

Durant,  W.,  346 

Eagle,  269 

Eating,  292 

Economic  motive,  119,  148 

Education,  135,  265  et  seq. 

Educational  Review,  265 

Egoism,  233,  274,  275,  282 

Ends  and  means,  91,  114,  125- 

127,  153,  177,  264;  see  also 

Values 
Enlightenment,  4,  6,  262,  265, 

274;  see  also  Ideas 
Environment,  49,  59,  98,  109, 

142 

Error,  useful,  8,  38 
Eskimo,  183 


Esthetic  pleasure,  132;  sensi- 
bility, 242  et  seq.;  see  also 
Beauty 

Ethics,  problems  of,  3,  35,  203, 
223;  decadence  of,  2,  6,  24; 
and  experience,  10,  13,  20, 
163,  307;  and  religion,  10, 
12;  and  science,  6,  9,  31,  36, 
51,  71,  86,  102,  171  et  seq., 
192,  198  et  seq.,  205,  283, 
309,  311;  and  sociology,  4, 
27-39,  174,  200  et  seq.;  see 
also  Progress 

Euken,  R.,  71,  75 

Evolution,  269  et  seq.,  291, 
292 

Experience,  114,  126 

Explanation,  42,  108 

"External"  world,  317,  326, 
327 

Faith,  8,  9,  79,  94,  224,  346 

Fatalism,  confused  with  de- 
terminism, 93 

Faust,  155,  240 

Feeling,  109,  169,  187,  188; 
and  consciousness,  316,  319, 
330;  see  also  Sentiment 

Fly,  47 

Force,  269,  273  et  seq. 
Fractional  response,  60 
Freedom,   38,   40,  47,   52,   55, 

59,  60,  61,  105,  304 
Freud,  S.,  53,  85 
Friendship,   137 
Frog,  46,  47 
Function,  318,  321   and  note, 

325  note,  329 
Future  reference,  47,  297,  299, 

315,  3i8,  321  et  seq.,  331 

Germany,  2 

God,  19,  65,  210,  229 


INDEX 


35i 


Goethe,  157,  240 
Golden  rule,  237 
Good,  the,  114,  126,  128,  156, 

161-181,    173    et    seq.,    176, 

205 

Gossip,  247 
Greece,  248 
Gregariousness,  271 
Gumplowicz,  L.,  268 

Habit,  ico,  102 

Hammerton,  P.  G.,  36,  38 

Happiness,  302 ;  see  also  Good, 
Values 

Hate,  250 

Hawkins,  Sir  J.,  260 

Heathenism,  116,  156 

Heredity,  50,  59 

Home,  133 

Hopi  Indians,  8 

Human  life,  a  social  product, 
4,  22,  49,  57,  85,  109,  121, 
137,  239,  249,  263,  265,  290, 
296,  303,  308;  see  also  So- 
cialization 

Humility,  141,  247 

Hypostasis  of  the  instrument, 
204 

Hypothetical  imperative,  204, 
212 

Ideal,  personal,  139,  143,  246 
et  seq.,  259  et  seq. 

Idealism,  242,  283;  meta- 
physical, 327 

Ideas,  in  relation  to  life,  5,  21, 
53,  9i>  95>  ioo,  MI,  284, 
288,  292  et  seq.,  296,  303, 

347 
Ideas  and  consciousness,  316, 

322  et  seq.,  331,  334 
Ideomotor  action,  286 


Igorot,  263 

Illegitimacy,  50 

"Immediate"  knowledge,  317 

Imperative,  204,  211;  see  also 
Intelligible  imperative 

Individual,  all  values  are,  109, 
no,  291 

Individualism,  3,  267;  see 
also,  Egoism,  Self-interest 

Inhibition,  53,  57 

Instinct,  5,  55,  56,  72,  74,  100, 
120,  178,  250,  297;  and 
gregariousness,  271,  308; 
and  morality,  81  et  seq.,  89, 
91,  187,  232;  and  reason, 
279,  292  et  seq.,  303,  332; 
and  religion,  14;  and  satis- 
faction, 151,  235,  295,  332 
et  seq.;  of  play,  153;  of 
workmanship,  149 

Integrity,  140,  143,  144,  286 

Intellectual  values,  153  et  seq. 

Intelligence,  as  a  resource  of 
righteousness,  252  et  seq. 

Intelligent  self-interest,  226 

Intelligible  imperative,  211, 
246,  284,  286 

Interest,  intellectual,   135 

Introduction  to  Sociology, 
32,  57,  60,  82,  265 

Intuition,  72,  74,  201 

Invention,  346;  see  also  Ideas, 
in  relation  to  life 

Invidiousness,  246  et  seq. 

James,  Wm.,  7,  53,  54,  57,  71 
Job,  78,  197 
Justice,  279,  281 

Kallen,  H.  M.,  346 
Kant,  Immanuel,  2,  71-75,  126 
Keller,   Helen,  49,  290 
Kidd,  Benj.,  223 


352 


INDEX 


Kingsley,  Chas.,  27 
Knowledge,  theory  of,  336  et 

seq.,  345;  see  also  Dualism, 

Object 

Law,  common,  183;  forms  of, 
192-195;  moral,  184,  190, 
197  et  seq.,  204,  283,  309 

Leffingwell,  A.,  50,  51 

Lessing,  G.  E.,  113 

Loyalty,  see  Social  spirit,  In- 
telligible imperative 

Maori,  242,  244 

Marner,  Silas,  153 

Materialism,  344 

Maurice,  F.  D.,  27 

McDougall,  Wm.,  151 

Means  and  ends,  see  Ends  and 
means 

Memory,  46,  169,  297,  323 

Metonomy,  in  speaking  of 
consciousness,  53  note 

Mill,  J.  S.,  157,  240 

Mind,  315;  and  body,  see 
Body  and  mind 

Mind-stuff,  316,  323,  331 

Monarch  butterfly,  297 

Money,  117 

Moral  instinct,  81  et  seq. 

Moral  law,  see  Law 

Moral  progress,  258  et  seq. 

Moral  responsibility,  83  et 
seq.,  87  et  seq.,  92,  94, 
106 

Mother,  234 

Motive,  6,  13,  21,  22,  90  et 
seq.,  1 08,  207,  209,  211  et 
seq.,  223-312  (248  et  seq., 
254  et  seq.,  309),  348;  eco- 
nomic, 119 

Munsterberg,  H.,  60 


Natural    resources    of    right- 
eousness, 227 
Naturalism,  2,  3,  42 
Nature,  beauty  of,  132 
Neurosis,    45;    see    also    Be* 

havior 

Newspaper,  294 
Nietzschianism,    2,    267,    268, 
275 

Object,  as  distinct  from  sub- 
ject, 328,  336;  see  also 
Dualism 


Pain,  151;  economy,  131 

Papuan,  242 

Paradox  of  hedonism,  116 

Pearson,  K.,  55,  218 

Penelope,  347 

Pericles,  347 

Personal  ideal,  see  Ideal,  per- 
sonal 

Personal  satisfaction,  183 

Pessimism,  205,  208,  264  et 
seq.,  268,  273,  311;  see  also 
Progress 

Philosophy,  74,  171,  191,  216 
et  seq. 

Physical  pleasure,  129,  251 

Plato,  182 

Play,  153 

Pleasure,  113,  129  et  seq.,  180, 
240;  economy,  131 

Practical  necessity,  48,  103 

Pragmatism,  318  et  seq.,  342 

Prayer,  19 

Present  and  past  contain  the 
causes,  92,  96 

Pride,   146,  244  et  seq.,  283 

Process,  321,  325  note,  328 

Production,  122,  149 


INDEX 


353 


Progress,  5,  17,  116,  183,  207, 
230,  258,  262  et  seq.,  268, 
304,  308 

Proportion,  114,  147,  298 
Providence,  41,  94,  209 
Psychic  and  spiritual  equiva- 
lent) 12 

Psychic  nature  of  social  or- 
ganization, no,  289  and 
note 

Ratzenhofer,  G.,  268 

Razor,  326 

Reason,  66,  186,  224  et  seq., 
253  et  seq.,  268  et  seq.,  276 
et  seq.,  285,  298;  and  mor- 
ality, 258-312  (304,  306); 
see  also  Instinct 

Reasonableness  of  virtue,  267 
et  seq.,  275 

Reims,  243 

Relativity,   341 

Religion,  I,  14,  21,  22,  99,  223 
et  seq.,  229,  241,  267 

Resolution,  98 

Responsibility,  238;  see  also 
Moral  responsibility 

Retributive  justice,  89 

Rewards  and  punishments,  22, 
88  et  seq.,  305;  see  also 
Ends  and  means 

Right,  the,  126,  128,  177-180, 
182-222,  (200),  273 

Rights,  268,  273 

Ritual,  10,  23,  26,  142 

Royce,  J.,  157,  161,  239,  240 

Ruskin,  John,  27 

Sabbath  observance,  n 
Sabin,  E.  E.,  318 
Sacrifice,   158,    182,  204,  223, 
227,  276,  281 


Salvation,  plan  of,  97  et  seq. 
Sanctions,  225,  267  , 

Satisfaction    and    desire,    112 

et  seq.,  114,   131,   135,   154, 

157,  240 

Savages,  15,  41,  183 
Schmoller,  G.,  n 
Schopenhauer,  17 
Scientific  spirit,  27 
Self,  138  et  seq. 
Self-interest,    226,    233;     see 

also  Egoism 
Self-respect,  244  et  seq. 
Sensitiveness     to     social     ap- 
proval, 229,  230 
Sentiment,   188,  285,  303 
Slavery,     182,     196,    .259     et 

seq. 

Small,  A.  W.,  148 
Social  contract,  78 
Social  Darwinism,  269 
Social  forces  error,  108,  109 
Social  order,  no 
Social  pleasure,  136 
Social    spirit,   22,   28,    157   et 

seq.,    212    et    seq.f    238-240, 

283,  300,  309  et  seq. 
Social    values,    108-160    (156, 

160),  162 
Socialization,     25,     228,     251, 

257,    258-312    (302,    307    et 

seq.) 
Sociology,  27,  31,  37,  70,  216- 

222 

Socrates,  198 

Solipsism,  339 

Sophist,  156 

Soul,  130,  266,  303,  316 

Specialization,  293 

Spencer,  Herbert,  27,  36,  218, 

219 
Spiritual,  12 


354 


INDEX 


Standard  of  social  control, 
no 

Standard  of  success,  122,  124, 
137-144,  207,  259,  263 

Stoics,  144,  147,  248 

Subject  and  predicate,  327 

Success,  see  Standard  of  suc- 
cess 

Suicide,  51,  52 

Sumner,  W.  G.,  146 

Sunday,  Billy,  7 

Supernatural,  41 

Taboo,  183,  242 

Taxes,  226 

Tiger,  269 

Total  response,  61 

Toynbee,  A.,  27 

Transition,    2,    6-8,    78,    160, 

211,  225,  304  et  seq. 
Treitschke,  268 

"Ultraratibnal   sanction,"  225, 

267 
Unconscious,  53  note 

Values,  6,  173,  248;  effect  of 


determinism  on,  79  et  seq., 
8 1  et  seq.,  87  et  seq.,  126, 
127  et  seq.;  see  also  Social 
values,  Ends  and  means 

Vanity,  146,  147,  246 

Veblen,  I.,  150 

Victorian  standards,  2,  4 

Vikings,  184,  263 

Virtue,  236 

Volition,  see  Will 

Wages,  127 

War,  182,  184,  196,  259,  262, 

269  et  seq. 
Ward,  L.  F.,  115,  175 
Webster,  H.,  n 
Wild  oats,  99 
Will,  52-76   (54,  56,  59),  88, 

236 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  314 
Work,   125,   148,   153   et  seq., 

309 

Workmanship,  instinct  of,  149 
World-view,  37 
Wundt,  Wm.,  43 

Zulu,  190,  198,  314 


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